So, given the time of year, it's no surprise that all the cautionary (or outright panicked) posts concerning Halloween start coming from Christian sources, anywhere from worry about witchcraft to warnings about drawing the attention of evil demons. Blog posts warn of parties that are secret dark rituals, there to grab the souls of the unwary, the unheeding, those poor people who didn't know better than to have fun.
Ugh.
Halloween is OLD, linked to All Saints Day, when Christians remember those who have died in the past year and celebrate their lives. Halloween (From "All Hallows Eve") was the celebration that came the night before, on a day superstition said that the barriers between the living and the dead were weaker.
That part of it MAY be from an older Pagan holiday. There is certainly no lack of harvest festival concerned with issues of death. But the Christian approach to it was absolutely fantastic. You wore funny costumes, shared treats, dressed as demons... to mock them.
Halloween was a celebration making fun of the evil spirits of dead. Most assumed that the spirits couldn't stand such mockery, and so would go elsewhere to spread their trouble, but I think the answer was much more simple: we didn't believe they had any power over us to begin with, and the mocking was not to weaken them, but rather to embolden us.
The Medieval Church was HORRIBLE at teaching its teachings. Understanding what was happening in your average mass was nearly impossible, with cavernous cathedrals swallowing sound and most (if not all) of the mass being performed in Latin, a language even the priests only barely understood. So we were left with superstition, uncertainty, and fear. For instance, the church had to institute a rule that Christians had to actually take mass once a year, because people were terrified that if they accidentally did it wrong, they would be doomed to hellfire. NOTHING in the theology suggested this, but the people assumed, and no effort was made to teach them otherwise.
Halloween was a rare instance when those ancient priests did it right, recognizing that fear of demons and devils was too prevalent to simply ignore. The theology said that the people had nothing to worry about... Christ Victorious, after all... but the people couldn't even understand the hymns, much less a homily on demons. But a party... a festival mocking evil spirits... THAT they understood, and it did a lot of good.
The roots have been lost. Not many people celebrate All Saints Day anymore, and so Halloween has become a secular event. But as I read those panicky posts, I begin to think that Christians need to be reminded of what it used to be. I think that because, yet again, our people are afraid, irrationally so. Theology hasn't changed, we are still supposed to preach Christ Victorious, but we largely aren't. Preaching Fear for the purpose of control has become vogue, and has been successful in many ways. People ARE afraid. Of demons, of movies, of culture, of LGBTQ people, of liberals, you name it.
We've become afraid of the demons again. But it's a problem the Medieval priests taught us how to solve...
Throw a party.
So THAT is why you should celebrate Halloween... especially if you are fearful of doing so.
Tuesday, October 27, 2015
Saturday, October 17, 2015
Saturday Ramble: Reyn's Last Game
My dog, Reyn, died last night. I write that because it is a little easier to stomach than "the precious baby who took a pair of newlyweds and made us a FAMILY," because it is easy to appear composed in text and the reality is that I am pausing ever few seconds to break into angry, ugly tears. We only had her for three years... she should have had a lot more.
Such moments are, of necessity, crisis of faith. If you can stand unmoved in the face of the loss a loved one, then I don't think the word is "strength," anymore, so much as emotional crippling. Not everyone loves their dog in such a way, but I did, and my wife did. And so of course I'm a wreck, and since I am a wreck who believes in a God who hears and loves us, I have spent more than the usual amount of time screaming at that God. Not internally raging... literally screaming. My throat hurts from it, in the same way my eyes hurt from crying.
It beats yelling at Rose, or Reyn while she was still with us. If you want a tangible benefit of the belief in an intangible God, there's one for you. It's not unique to hard-nosed believers, either. I once heard an atheist, in the midst of their pain, cry out "You see, THIS is why I don't believe in you!"
Unpack that statement however you like.
Something interesting did happen in that room, though. Our plan HAD been to keep Reyn home last night and today, to have her vet drive out this afternoon to do it. But after a great day (friends visiting, long walks, fun food she wasn't normally allowed to have, lots and lots and lots of throwing the tennis ball) it was clear that she was struggling. Her breaths were ragged and occasionally punctuated by coughing as her lungs struggled to oxygenate blood that, poisoned by her failed kidneys, no longer had sufficient red blood cells to oxygenate. Where she would normally bound to her place on top of the couch in two jumps, she now had to slowly climb. Our bed was flat out of her reach, needing me to lift her, something she'd always hated. So we made the call, to take her while she still had some pep, while her tail was still wagging, while the IV fluids allowed her to feel like a living creature.
I don't think I've ever made a harder decision. I don't know that I could have made it, had Rose and I not been able to make it together.
So there we were, in a room at the Animal Hospital. We'd brought along her favorite blanket, a rawhide bone (they used to last scant minutes around her, this one she just licked or carried) and her latest (already punctured) tennis ball. Normally Reyn on a trip was always upbeat and curious, but she'd spent a lot of time in hospitals recently and was visibly frightened. Not knowing what else to do, I tossed her ball.
Instantly, fear was forgotten. There was a moving ball, the rest of the world didn't exist anymore. She chased it, caught it, and brought it back to me, dropping it in my lap. She wanted more. So we gave her more, we tossed it over and over and over again, and she brought it back, alternating between giving it to me, or giving it to Rose.
And someone else. Someone else was in the room... to her, anyway.
Anyone who has spent any amount of time around dying people has seen it... towards the end, many dying people will start to see other people in the room with them, people other is the room can't see, often lost loved ones. Call it what you like, from a heavenly visitation to a helpful hallucination, the brain easing its own way, but to them it's there, it's real.
Rose and I were next to each other on a couch, holding each other as we played Reyn's favorite game with her. But periodically, she'd take the ball to an empty chair in the room, and hold it as she looked at the chair expectantly, tail wagging. Reyn didn't ignore potential playmates. She saw someone in that chair, and wanted them to play with her, too. But after a few seconds, or when Rose and I would call, she'd run back over to us so we'd play.
I will always wonder who she saw in that chair, who she was inviting to join in her last game, ears perked, tail wagging. Only a few minutes later, exhausted, she watched the ball go away and didn't chase it. Instead, she climbed up onto the couch, laid down on her blanket, and I went to call the technician. Five minutes later she was gone, and I felt as that huge heart of hers stopped beating.
God damn it.
In the room there was a poorly written poem, in stanzas that rhymed when the author could be bothered, called the Rainbow Bridge. I've since learned that it is based on a short prose narrative of the same title, which talks about the place pets go when they die, to be full, happy and hale again, and to wait eagerly until their human finally joins them. It's a neat thought, reassurance that your pet is no longer hurting, but also eager to see you again. I still miss her, but there are worst thoughts, so we'll run with it for now.
This ramble was just going to be the story of the other player in her game, hence the title, but I couldn't start there and apparently couldn't end there. That's how grief can work... a rollercoaster that takes you to odd highs and terrifying lows so fast you can barely keep up. I loved Reyn, my sweet Reynie-bear. If Rose and I have children, I'll hate that they never got to meet her, that she never got to have little ones tumbling around, dropping foods that she wasn't supposed to eat, I'll miss those wet, happy kisses and the thumping of that tail whenever I entered the room, I'll miss how she tugged at the leash when we went for walks and how I became a better person in a desperate attempt to live up to the me she saw everytime she looked at me.
Time may scar it over, may make the laughter more prevalent than the tears, may make the stories Rose and I have about her almost legendary as we share them and people think that a dog so great couldn't possibly be real. No dog is really that good, that fun, that sweet, right?
Don't you believe them, Dan. You know, as did everyone else who knew her, how great Reyn was, how loving, how gentle. Don't you dare forget that, ever. And don't worry. When your time comes, and you are reunited with all the loved ones you have lost, as you greet them in joy, you will hear a steadily accelerating thumping sound nearby.
And there she'll be, so freaking excited that Daddy has finally gotten home.
Such moments are, of necessity, crisis of faith. If you can stand unmoved in the face of the loss a loved one, then I don't think the word is "strength," anymore, so much as emotional crippling. Not everyone loves their dog in such a way, but I did, and my wife did. And so of course I'm a wreck, and since I am a wreck who believes in a God who hears and loves us, I have spent more than the usual amount of time screaming at that God. Not internally raging... literally screaming. My throat hurts from it, in the same way my eyes hurt from crying.
It beats yelling at Rose, or Reyn while she was still with us. If you want a tangible benefit of the belief in an intangible God, there's one for you. It's not unique to hard-nosed believers, either. I once heard an atheist, in the midst of their pain, cry out "You see, THIS is why I don't believe in you!"
Unpack that statement however you like.
Something interesting did happen in that room, though. Our plan HAD been to keep Reyn home last night and today, to have her vet drive out this afternoon to do it. But after a great day (friends visiting, long walks, fun food she wasn't normally allowed to have, lots and lots and lots of throwing the tennis ball) it was clear that she was struggling. Her breaths were ragged and occasionally punctuated by coughing as her lungs struggled to oxygenate blood that, poisoned by her failed kidneys, no longer had sufficient red blood cells to oxygenate. Where she would normally bound to her place on top of the couch in two jumps, she now had to slowly climb. Our bed was flat out of her reach, needing me to lift her, something she'd always hated. So we made the call, to take her while she still had some pep, while her tail was still wagging, while the IV fluids allowed her to feel like a living creature.
I don't think I've ever made a harder decision. I don't know that I could have made it, had Rose and I not been able to make it together.
So there we were, in a room at the Animal Hospital. We'd brought along her favorite blanket, a rawhide bone (they used to last scant minutes around her, this one she just licked or carried) and her latest (already punctured) tennis ball. Normally Reyn on a trip was always upbeat and curious, but she'd spent a lot of time in hospitals recently and was visibly frightened. Not knowing what else to do, I tossed her ball.
Instantly, fear was forgotten. There was a moving ball, the rest of the world didn't exist anymore. She chased it, caught it, and brought it back to me, dropping it in my lap. She wanted more. So we gave her more, we tossed it over and over and over again, and she brought it back, alternating between giving it to me, or giving it to Rose.
And someone else. Someone else was in the room... to her, anyway.
Anyone who has spent any amount of time around dying people has seen it... towards the end, many dying people will start to see other people in the room with them, people other is the room can't see, often lost loved ones. Call it what you like, from a heavenly visitation to a helpful hallucination, the brain easing its own way, but to them it's there, it's real.
Rose and I were next to each other on a couch, holding each other as we played Reyn's favorite game with her. But periodically, she'd take the ball to an empty chair in the room, and hold it as she looked at the chair expectantly, tail wagging. Reyn didn't ignore potential playmates. She saw someone in that chair, and wanted them to play with her, too. But after a few seconds, or when Rose and I would call, she'd run back over to us so we'd play.
I will always wonder who she saw in that chair, who she was inviting to join in her last game, ears perked, tail wagging. Only a few minutes later, exhausted, she watched the ball go away and didn't chase it. Instead, she climbed up onto the couch, laid down on her blanket, and I went to call the technician. Five minutes later she was gone, and I felt as that huge heart of hers stopped beating.
God damn it.
In the room there was a poorly written poem, in stanzas that rhymed when the author could be bothered, called the Rainbow Bridge. I've since learned that it is based on a short prose narrative of the same title, which talks about the place pets go when they die, to be full, happy and hale again, and to wait eagerly until their human finally joins them. It's a neat thought, reassurance that your pet is no longer hurting, but also eager to see you again. I still miss her, but there are worst thoughts, so we'll run with it for now.
This ramble was just going to be the story of the other player in her game, hence the title, but I couldn't start there and apparently couldn't end there. That's how grief can work... a rollercoaster that takes you to odd highs and terrifying lows so fast you can barely keep up. I loved Reyn, my sweet Reynie-bear. If Rose and I have children, I'll hate that they never got to meet her, that she never got to have little ones tumbling around, dropping foods that she wasn't supposed to eat, I'll miss those wet, happy kisses and the thumping of that tail whenever I entered the room, I'll miss how she tugged at the leash when we went for walks and how I became a better person in a desperate attempt to live up to the me she saw everytime she looked at me.
Time may scar it over, may make the laughter more prevalent than the tears, may make the stories Rose and I have about her almost legendary as we share them and people think that a dog so great couldn't possibly be real. No dog is really that good, that fun, that sweet, right?
Don't you believe them, Dan. You know, as did everyone else who knew her, how great Reyn was, how loving, how gentle. Don't you dare forget that, ever. And don't worry. When your time comes, and you are reunited with all the loved ones you have lost, as you greet them in joy, you will hear a steadily accelerating thumping sound nearby.
And there she'll be, so freaking excited that Daddy has finally gotten home.
Tuesday, October 6, 2015
Why You Shouldn't Say "I'll Pray For You"
So the past couple of days on ANF there have been a handful of threads on the subject of whether or not it was okay to say "I'll Pray For You" to an atheist. The threads quickly got contentious and as I came in during the contention, as opposed to during the discussion, I got a little turned around and ended up owing some people apologies. I was also primarily defending the act of praying for atheists, which I do unashamedly. (Not as a group, mind. There are just atheists I know who I pray for. Because they're MY atheists, and that's what I do.)
The issue was not whether or not we should pray for Atheists, though. The issue was whether or not it was okay to tell an atheist that you are going to pray for them. I got a little worried about my initial reaction when I realized the following things:
A: Promising prayer where it was not requested is one of the most aggressively religious things someone can do,
B: The Bible literally tells you NOT to make a public showing of when and about what you will be praying,
C: If you find yourself in an argument arguing why someone SHOULD like the thing they are telling you they don't like, odds are you are in the wrong and making yourself more so with every word.
Again, I'm not telling you not to pray. Pray all day, pray without ceasing. But the act of TELLING someone you will be, when they did not request it, is something that probably should be done only under very specific circumstances, such as they asked for those prayers in the past and appreciated knowing that you gave them.
Because, as I have said a thousand times over, prayer is not hacking the universe for a preferred response. It's not magic we're doing, simply communication. Put that way, walking up to a non-believer and saying you'll pray for them is eerily similar to saying: "Hey, sorry about that problem you have. I am going to go tell this guy you don't know and potentially makes you nervous about it."
It doesn't matter that that guy can help... it's not going to be a comfort because they don't know him, and if their only comfort in that scenario is the fact that they don't believe he actually exists, all point has basically been removed from the statement. Sure, it is probably nice to know that someone is thinking of you, but it takes some mental gymnastics to get there, and those gymnastics, by necessity, require a little patting of the believer on the head thinking, "Well, THAT'S cute," which is hardly good for the relationship.
If they know you are believer, and know that you care for them, they will probably know that you are also praying for them. It really SHOULD just be assumed, and in so doing we can take our well meant prayers and divorce them from a comment that is often loaded with unkind subtext, such as "Oh, I'll pray for you (to get struck by lightning)" or "I'll pray for you (because you're clearly a lost wreck.)"
So again, pray, pray, pray. Even for the Atheists in your life who you love and care for. But unless people are asking for it, there's probably no need to tell them about it. Instead, skip the beating around the bush and just tell them that you love them. If they know that, they can figure out the rest on their own.
The issue was not whether or not we should pray for Atheists, though. The issue was whether or not it was okay to tell an atheist that you are going to pray for them. I got a little worried about my initial reaction when I realized the following things:
A: Promising prayer where it was not requested is one of the most aggressively religious things someone can do,
B: The Bible literally tells you NOT to make a public showing of when and about what you will be praying,
C: If you find yourself in an argument arguing why someone SHOULD like the thing they are telling you they don't like, odds are you are in the wrong and making yourself more so with every word.
Again, I'm not telling you not to pray. Pray all day, pray without ceasing. But the act of TELLING someone you will be, when they did not request it, is something that probably should be done only under very specific circumstances, such as they asked for those prayers in the past and appreciated knowing that you gave them.
Because, as I have said a thousand times over, prayer is not hacking the universe for a preferred response. It's not magic we're doing, simply communication. Put that way, walking up to a non-believer and saying you'll pray for them is eerily similar to saying: "Hey, sorry about that problem you have. I am going to go tell this guy you don't know and potentially makes you nervous about it."
It doesn't matter that that guy can help... it's not going to be a comfort because they don't know him, and if their only comfort in that scenario is the fact that they don't believe he actually exists, all point has basically been removed from the statement. Sure, it is probably nice to know that someone is thinking of you, but it takes some mental gymnastics to get there, and those gymnastics, by necessity, require a little patting of the believer on the head thinking, "Well, THAT'S cute," which is hardly good for the relationship.
If they know you are believer, and know that you care for them, they will probably know that you are also praying for them. It really SHOULD just be assumed, and in so doing we can take our well meant prayers and divorce them from a comment that is often loaded with unkind subtext, such as "Oh, I'll pray for you (to get struck by lightning)" or "I'll pray for you (because you're clearly a lost wreck.)"
So again, pray, pray, pray. Even for the Atheists in your life who you love and care for. But unless people are asking for it, there's probably no need to tell them about it. Instead, skip the beating around the bush and just tell them that you love them. If they know that, they can figure out the rest on their own.
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