Tis the Season, to Rethink the Season

I stole this post from Keith's blog...

Earlier this week I was checking out the Advent Conspiracy after hearing much about it and knowing almost nothing. The concept was nothing new, but some of the numbers were incredible... a solemn reminder of the consumerism of my culture - and of my own consumerism.
The Advent Conspiracy is about Christmas - and Christmas spending, but we are actually in the midst of a pre-Christmas holiday right now - Halloween. While Halloween numbers fall far short of Christmas numbers, a Time Magazine article estimates Halloween spending to be 6 BILLION dollars this year. Add to that the dollars spent on enormous Fall Festivals sponsored by churches and quite frankly the numbers are sickening.
Watch this video from the Advent Conspiracy and tell me what you think...

Concerning Halloween

Here is an article that I found on Keith's post and thought I would share it with you... I did not write this...

It has become routine in October for some Christian schools to send out letters warning parents about the evils of Halloween, and it has become equally routine for me to be asked questions about this matter.

"Halloween" is simply a contraction for All Hallows’ Eve. The word "hallow" means "saint," in that "hallow" is just an alternative form of the word "holy" ("hallowed be Thy name"). All Saints’ Day is November 1. It is the celebration of the victory of the saints in union with Christ. The observance of various celebrations of All Saints arose in the late 300s, and these were united and fixed on November 1 in the late 700s. The origin of All Saints Day and of All Saints Eve in Mediterranean Christianity had nothing to do with Celtic Druidism or the Church’s fight against Druidism (assuming there ever even was any such thing as Druidism, which is actually a myth concocted in the 19th century by neo-pagans.)


In the First Covenant, the war between God’s people and God’s enemies was fought on the human level against Egyptians, Assyrians, etc. With the coming of the New Covenant, however, we are told that our primary battle is against principalities and powers, against fallen angels who bind the hearts and minds of men in ignorance and fear. We are assured that through faith, prayer, and obedience, the saints will be victorious in our battle against these demonic forces. The Spirit assures us: "The God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly" (Romans 16:20).


The Festival of All Saints reminds us that though Jesus has finished His work, we have not finished ours. He has struck the decisive blow, but we have the privilege of working in the mopping up operation. Thus, century by century the Christian faith has rolled back the demonic realm of ignorance, fear, and superstition. Though things look bad in the Western world today, this work continues to make progress in Asia and Africa and Latin America.
The Biblical day begins in the preceding evening, and thus in the Church calendar, the eve of a day is the actual beginning of the festive day. Christmas Eve is most familiar to us, but there is also the Vigil of Holy Saturday that precedes Easter Morn. Similarly, All Saints’ Eve precedes All Saints’ Day.


The concept, as dramatized in Christian custom, is quite simple: On October 31, the demonic realm tries one last time to achieve victory, but is banished by the joy of the Kingdom.
What is the means by which the demonic realm is vanquished? In a word: mockery. Satan’s great sin (and our great sin) is pride. Thus, to drive Satan from us we ridicule him. This is why the custom arose of portraying Satan in a ridiculous red suit with horns and a tail. Nobody thinks the devil really looks like this; the Bible teaches that he is the fallen Arch-Cherub. Rather, the idea is to ridicule him because he has lost the battle with Jesus and he no longer has power over us.
(The tradition of mocking Satan and defeating him through joy and laughter plays a large role in Ray Bradbury’s classic novel, Something Wicked This Way Comes, which is a Halloween novel.)
The gargoyles that were placed on the churches of old had the same meaning. They symbolized the Church ridiculing the enemy. They stick out their tongues and make faces at those who would assault the Church. Gargoyles are not demonic; they are believers ridiculing the defeated demonic army.
Thus, the defeat of evil and of demonic powers is associated with Halloween. For this reason, Martin Luther posted his 95 challenges to the wicked practices of the Church to the bulletin board on the door of the Wittenberg chapel on Halloween. He picked his day with care, and ever since Halloween has also been Reformation Day.


Similarly, on All Hallows’ Eve (Hallow-Even – Hallow-E’en – Halloween), the custom arose of mocking the demonic realm by dressing children in costumes. Because the power of Satan has been broken once and for all, our children can mock him by dressing up like ghosts, goblins, and witches. The fact that we can dress our children this way shows our supreme confidence in the utter defeat of Satan by Jesus Christ – we have NO FEAR!


I don’t have the resources to check the historical origins of all Halloween customs, and doubtless they have varied from time to time and from Christian land to Christian land. "Trick or treat" doubtless originated simply enough: something fun for kids to do. Like anything else, this custom can be perverted, and there have been times when "tricking" involved really mean actions by teenagers and was banned from some localities.
We can hardly object, however, to children collecting candy from friends and neighbors. This might not mean much to us today, because we are so prosperous that we have candy whenever we want, but in earlier generations people were not so well o_, and obtaining some candy or other treats was something special. There is no reason to pour cold water on an innocent custom like this.


Similarly, the jack-o’-lantern’s origins are unknown. Hollowing out a gourd or some other vegetable, carving a face, and putting a lamp inside of it is something that no doubt has occurred quite independently to tens of thousands of ordinary people in hundreds of cultures worldwide over the centuries. Since people lit their homes with candles, decorating the candles and the candle-holders was a routine part of life designed to make the home pretty or interesting. Potatoes, turnips, beets, and any number of other items were used.
Wynn Parks writes of an incident he observed: "An English friend had managed to remove the skin of a tangerine in two intact halves. After carving eyes and nose in one hemisphere and a mouth in the other, he poured cooking oil over the pith sticking up in the lower half and lit the readymade wick. With its upper half on, the tangerine skin formed a miniature jack-o’-lantern. But my friend seemed puzzled that I should call it by that name. `What would I call it? Why a "tangerine head," I suppose.’" (Parks, "The Head of the Dead," The World & I, November 1994, p. 270.)
In the New World, people soon learned that pumpkins were admirably suited for this purpose. The jack-o’-lantern is nothing but a decoration; and the leftover pumpkin can be scraped again, roasted, and turned into pies and muffins.
In some cultures, what we call a jack-o’-lantern represented the face of a dead person, whose soul continued to have a presence in the fruit or vegetable used. But this has no particular relevance to Halloween customs. Did your mother tell you, while she carved the pumpkin, that this represented the head of a dead person and with his soul trapped inside? Of course not. Symbols and decorations, like words, mean different things in different cultures, in different languages, and in different periods of history. The only relevant question is what does it mean now, and nowadays it is only a decoration.
And even if some earlier generations did associate the jack-o’-lantern with a soul in a head, so what? They did not take it seriously. It was just part of the joking mockery of heathendom by Christian people.
This is a good place to note that many articles in books, magazines, and encyclopedias are written by secular humanists or even the pop-pagans of the so-called "New Age" movement. (An example is the article by Wynn Parks cited above.) These people actively suppress the Christian associations of historic customs, and try to magnify the pagan associations. They do this to try and make paganism acceptable and to downplay Christianity. Thus, Halloween, Christmas, Easter, etc., are said to have pagan origins. Not true.
Oddly, some fundamentalists have been influenced by these slanted views of history. These fundamentalists do not accept the humanist and pagan rewriting of Western history, American history, and science, but sometimes they do accept the humanist and pagan rewriting of the origins of Halloween and Christmas, the Christmas tree, etc. We can hope that in time these brethren will reexamine these matters as well. We ought not to let the pagans do our thinking for us.


Nowadays, children often dress up as superheroes, and the original Christian meaning of Halloween has been absorbed into popular culture. Also, with the present fad of "designer paganism" in the so-called New Age movement, some Christians are uneasy with dressing their children as spooks. So be it. But we should not forget that originally Halloween was a Christian custom, and there is no solid reason why Christians cannot enjoy it as such even today.


"He who sits in the heavens laughs; Yahweh ridicules them" says Psalm 2. Let us join in His holy laughter, and mock the enemies of Christ on October 31.


Copyright © James B. Jordan 1989 - 2007

God's provision

God has always provided for our needs, it is a daily thing as He promised. I love it when our children recognize this in our lives.
Yesterday morning I took Ivey to a sale at Kohl's to pick up some new clothes for her since she is growing like a weed and needed some fall/winter things. I knew it was a great sale and I even had my favorite - coupons to save more! We both love to see how much we save at the end of the bill. So, we enjoyed picking out some things and then her trying them on, showing me, us laughing at some of the funnies and then me waiting on her to make up her mind ( this is payback, I am sure). Then we went to check out and Ivey was a little hesitant because I didn't put any of the items back. I knew that they were all on sale and that what we were buying would take her through the end of the yr. We watched as the guy checked us out and I looked over at Ivey with tears in her eyes. Why was she tearing up? Because she was concerned that I was spending too much on her. The price total hit close to $200. We bought her 4 pr. of pants, a long shirt/dress, a pr of shoes, and 7 shirts ( I think) and after 2 separate discounts, we saved over $236 and only paid $136. I thought this was awesome...we got 14 items including shoes and paid less than $10 for each item. Praise God! But I was more amazed at Ivey's heart and her concern for spending too much $. She ended up with a smile as the total fell and then she couldn't wait to tell her Daddy how much we saved and how much we got. Then she modeled it all for him later. I hope as she grows up that she will be a frugal shopper and she is learning the cost of things and how to save/spend wisely. For those of you who think we spent too much, we did thrift store shop for all of her summer clothes this past yr and got her wardrobe pretty cheap there as well.

I am grateful that I don't have to take all my kids shopping like this. Thankfully, we have received clothes from family and friends for the boys! God is good!

Answered prayer and a decision to make

Good News! Keith's humerus is healing as it should and he will not need surgery! He will continue to wear the sling for 2 more weeks and then begin some passive therapy. Great praise!! Thank you for your prayers.

Another prayer request is a decision that I have to make regarding my surgery. I can either have an ALIF or an AxiaLIF. There are major differences in the two. The first requires a vascular surgeon to open my lower abdomen and move the vessels about so the surgeon can do the fusion. Hospital stay is longer and recovery is a bit longer as well. The surgeon has done a number of these and I am confident he can do mine well, also.

The AxiaLIF is a newer procedure that requires a 1 inch incision at the base of my tailbone, a 1-2 days stay in the hospital and a quicker recovery.

You may be thinking this is a no brainer...pick the easier one. But my questions that I get to ask in November include...how many have you done of the newer procedure (as of earlier this yr, he hadn't done any but was going to another state to observe, etc.) (and I am sure he will have been trained in this before trying it on me!), what are the differences in long-term results, and a few other things. SO, I need God to guide me to make the right choice. I am confident that He knows the best one.

Friday! yea, I am so loving the weather. However it is sort of bittersweet with many thoughts of my Dad and his love of this time of year. Hay being cut, mums everywhere, pansy planting time and GA Bulldawg football.

Today I drove Ivey out to Mom's house. She was giving her first horse riding lesson to her cousin Cate. She was very excited about it, and the potential to make a little extra money. She has been praying for some kind of job that she could earn money to help her pay for the farrier and other horse expenses. I was tickled when she got the call from her cousins about this "job" opportunity. The horse ownership has been a great learning experience for Ivey, she is learning how expensive it is for one thing. She is also learning to save her money each month and knows ahead of time when she needs $ and how much she will need.

My Mom's anniversary was this past week...it would have been their 48th! She seemed to be doing well, but she did share with me how hard it was when she went into their camper to get some things...Daddy's clothes, hats and many memories brought on a wave of tears. It made me cry thinking about how hard that must have been for her. She is incredibly strong, but I know this has taken every bit of her strength and without her faith, she would not make it. Her only love, her dearest and closest friend, her strength, lifelong mate, lover....

I miss him so much. Everytime I drive up to their house, the memories flood me and I go through those emotions of anger and grief.

Well, on a lighter note...I have so enjoyed my boys playing together this week out in the dirt. give them a box of motorcycles, some dirt and shovels and they will have a blast building a track and racing bikes. Robby also had the bright idea to ride Elijah's bigwheel down the long fast hill on one of our streets. Thankfully, injury free!!!

okay...update on this never dull household. Did I mention that I visited the ER about 2 weeks ago on a Sunday morning for a VERY swollen lip and a staph infection...got a tetanus shot, 2 antibiotics and some pain med. before that...

I think I mentioned Robby hurt his ankle (possible growth plate fracture) in the fracture boot for 2 weeks, and now he is in an ankle brace and back to playing football with a limp. ahem..

Well, on Friday the boys went to ride dirtbikes and I am at home ALONE with a sleeping baby and I check facebook and find a picture of my hubby's face a little scratched up and bloody. He said something like " nothing broke, shoulder hurt, so they return home after loading the bikes and he cannot raise his arm at all. So, I talked him into letting me take him to the ortho urgent care and he is scheduled for an MRI day after tomorrow. He doesn't have anything broken and this is the same shoulder that he had surgery on when we lived in Eastman. So, they think it may be rotator cuff or some tendon tear. we will see...

Then I went to pick up Ivey from her trainers barn and the horse had stepped on her foot and it is swollen, black, purple and a nice shade of blue. Ouch!

Saturday we loaded up early and left at 6am for a horse show in Tyrone GA. Ivey took a spill when Cassie refused a jump during the warmup, she was okay except for a scraped elbow and a stomach filled with nervous butterflies. She returned to the class for the competition and ended up with a 3rd and 5th place. It was not the best show she has had, but she learned to persevere and hang in there...give it a try and be okay with the outcome. I love her trainer and how she handles Ivey, she was so encouraging after the fall and the difficult times during the jumping class. God is good and after a bad start, she was surprised to hear her name called out for 3rd place! You should have seen the smile on her face, it was beautiful!

We returned home exhausted about 9pm, soaking wet from the rain that held off until we started unloading horses and all of the tack.

Robby did play in his game Sat., but not as hard as he would have liked, since he hobbled around most of the time. They did get a win and so he was thrilled. Keith was hurting pretty bad after coaching the game and taking care of the boys...or they had to take care of him I think...Elijah helped put on deoderant and socks! LOL

Well, that's about the extent of our excitement. And dont even ask if Keith Watson is giving up riding his dirtbike, cause that ain't happenin'! he has TOO much fun on it when he doesn't get hurt. crazy boys...I guess we all just play too hard around here!

Its Tuesday, i think, and I am a little blue cause my hubby is in Houston for the week. He is there for Acts 29 boot camp and I pray he will be refreshed and energized by the Word and by the friendships he has in the community of pastors.

It has been a bit crazy here between Robby's fracture at the growth plate on his ankle from a scrimmage game, to my swollen lip/staph infection/trip to the ER Sunday morning (thanks MOM) and then ELijahs random bloody nose. Not to mention I keep a 3 month old who hasn't been to the bathroom is like 4 days and was really cranky yesterday! I was blessed to have help all day from Mom and Grandmommy who LOVES, loves to hold those babies! It was good therapy for her since she lost one of her sisters this past weekend. My Grandmother is 84 and her sister was almost 93.

My lip is less swollen today thanks to 2 antibiotics and alot of drainage...gross. I hope Robby's ankle will heal quickly cause he is miserable sitting around all day and we want to see him play some FOOTBALL!!

This is Robby...5'5, 174 lbs! on his adult size dirtbike, and boy can he ride!. he scares me to death!!!

Elijah continues to make us laugh and apparently he also amuses his teachers on Sunday morning. I received an email from one of them this week telling me of his animations...

Keith and Amy,
Wanted to let you know that Wendy and I had Elijah's class this morning, and he kept us rolling. The lesson was the story of Creation. Wendy was explaining that plants would not grow if God had not created the sun. Elijah said, "People stop growing if they don't have birthday parties". Later I commented that it was really amazing that God created everything simply by speaking it into being. I was getting blank stares from all three boys and so I said, "That's pretty powerful isn't it? What if your mom told you to clean your room and all you had to do was walk in there and say 'Be clean!" and all your toys would put themselves away." Elijah said, "Oh, when I clean my room, I just hide everything under my bed." :) But my favorite (and Keith, you'll love this one...) was when we were getting ready to play a game at the end and Elijah said, "I get to go first cause I own this place!!!" We cracked up. What a wonderful kid! I'm sure he's a joy to you both.

He is such joy! I am also SO thankful that my 12 yr old son and my 6 yr old can play together for over an hour with their playmobil castles and knights!!
This is Elijah on his Honda!

And Ivey....she is growing up to be a beautiful young lady. She is 14! But still my little girl. I thank God everytime I see her in her room enjoying her American girl dolls, her Breyer horses and reading, reading, reading. She keeps me running to the library because she reads so much so quickly. I often wonder how many 14 yr olds still enjoy playing. She has such a knack for making things too. She took popsicle sticks and made horse stalls, ribbon and cross stitch yarn to make horse halters. Now she is making more ornate halters with beads and also for bracelets. I don't know where she gets that from, because I HATE crafts. (isn't that sad)

I love that she doesn't seem fazed by the injury on her arm...the obvious clue to a horrendous accident hits you in the face everytime you see her arm. She doesn't try and hide it anymore, like she did when it first happened. She is still afraid of the dogs in the yard, so she won't go there alone. But now she says...if that had not happened...I wouldn't have my horse, Cassie. And they are the best of friends. Ivey will get in the pen with Cassie and they play chase and jump jumps together (on foot). I love watching Cassie follow her around.

the blessing abounding are endless!

"look Mom, no hands!"

Last note- my MRI did show the need for the fusion on my back, but thankfully, just at one level. The date is somewhat set for Dec. 8th. So, I better get my shopping done early!

I really am going to post some Disney pics this week!