foolishnotions.net

this morning we prayed for all the candidates at rock church, for their safety and for the wisdom to lead our country. this is the most passionate presidential race yet. let’s not forget we’re all in this together for better or worse. and whoever our next president is, it is our responsibility as americans to honor them even if we don’t agree on every subject; it is our responsibility as christians to pray for them. let’s remember who we are.

this is right on, los. hope you don’t mind i copied it verbatim… i wouldn’t have said it better.

let’s pray ya’ll. monday night, 9:30pm at ragamuffinsoul.com. who’s in?

I have not seen division like the one I see within the American church walls, ever.
I think we need to hold tight to our moral and spiritual values, but the division that is in the air right now is MASSIVE.  We have the technology to hide behind our 140 characters at a time or anonymous blog comments or venom filled blog posts.  We are saying things to each other that we would never say in person.  I honestly believe God himself is looking down upon his church and crying.

So what should we do?

We should pray.

Those who are voting for Obama should pray blessings over McCain.
Those who are voting for McCain should be praying blessings upon Obama.
We should stop moaning and complaining about inexperience, Alaska, taxes, teenage pregnancy, terrorists, wardrobes, racism, and Katie Couric.

We in turn need to pray.

Pray for what?

Well my pastor, Matt Brown, preached an AMAZING message that can set you up for this time of prayer.

So tomorrow night.

Right here.

LIVE VIDEO STREAM WITH YOU PRAYING WITH ME

We are going to turn off the news, open our Bibles, and pray for our leaders.

PRAY NONPARTISAN
1. Pray that our leaders would grown in Faith. In their relationships with Jesus Christ.
2. Pray for their marriages.
3. Pray for their children.
4. Pray for those around them.
5. Pray for their emotional and physical health.
6. Those on the left pray blessing on McCain, those on the right pray for Obama.
6. Those on the left pray blessing on McCain, those on the right pray for Obama.
6. Those on the left pray blessing on McCain, those on the right pray for Obama.

So. Here. Tomorrow night. Monday the 3rd. 9:30 pm ATL time.
I bet we could get a few hundred. Or not. We did when we prayed for ourselves.
It would be glorious if we could gather to pray for our leaders.
I’m not sure of any churches around town doing this, so let’s do it here.

See those little banners up top?
Let’s spread those puppies around this here interweb until people are sick of them.
Then tomorrow night you can take them down.
There is a little “Share” button on the bottom right of each of them.
Click that puppy and copy the appropriate code and paste away on your sidebars, myspaces, facebooks, blogs, ect.

Let’s show the world that we are more than a bunch of politic loving Jesus tolerating people.
Let’s actually hang out with Jesus as we pray for our leaders.
Who’s in?
Los

when i was a little girl i lived on a horse farm. every year my mom and i would string up fun decorations among the tall stacks of hay in the loft of the old barn. i would invite all my friends over for a really cool halloween party complete with real live resident spiders and naturally eery flickering lights.  the sweet smell of caramel mingled with the dusty scent of alfalfa hay as we bobbed for apples out of a metal water trough that would serve a horse again the next day.  it was so fun.  popcorn balls, hay, pumpkins, candy, games…  and then we would go across the street to the neighborhood to go trick-or-treating.  it was like the best of both worlds for me as i usually felt i was missing out on the whole neighborhood experience since i lived in “the country” (which was flanked on all sides of it’s 100 acre exterior by the city of raleigh, nc).  i remember the year we were now all christians who didn’t celebrate halloween, a tiny detail they failed to run by me before i signed on for the christian life.  it was really hard.

so, now i have a child and have to decide.  do we celebrate halloween or not?  and, most importantly, why???  cause he’s asking, and i hate it when he asks me something that i have said no to only to discover i can’t tell him why.  it painfully reveals how many things i still hold to because someone else said so.  this bugs the fool out of me.  so, here we go… why not?

other holidays do it…
i did some digging on other holidays.  come to find out, just about all of them have some sort of pagan influence or cultural folklore that has somehow infiltrated our western celebrations. so, what determines which holidays and traditions are ok?  some of these influences are decidedly darker than others. but, are the holidays that have put on a pretty enough face to make everything acceptable the ones that are ok?  or is a pagan practice just a pagan practice… even if you don’t fully realize what the reason for it was in the first place?

if a holiday is christian in origin, are the pagans who participate unwittingly worshipping god?
i’ve heard the argument that christians who adopt pagan rituals into the celebration of thier christian holidays are unwittingly worshipping pagan gods.  so, if a pagan religion puts it’s spin on christmas, are they unwittingly celebrating christ’s birth?  hmmmm….  ok, that may have been a stretch as more often than not it’s the christians who are adopting the pagan rituals into thier celebrations.  i mean, i don’t know if worshipers of odin had a nativity scene on thier coffee table a few feet away from the boots filled with food for his eight legged horse.  but it’s an interesting question given the vial treatment some christians have directed toward thier fellow believers for filling up stockings hung on the chimney on christmas eve.

pagan idols and traditions in the bible
god is clear about idol worship and his stance on the worship of false deities.  but is there a difference in having an idol for the purpose of worship and having an idol for the purpose of enjoying it’s artistic value?  is there a difference in using pagan practices for the purpose of worship as opposed to using ideas from pagan rituals as a springboard to inject a litte fun into our own culture?  i really don’t know… so, don’t throw stones.  i’m just asking the question that i don’t have a clear answer for yet.

ok, halloween
well, besides a little glimmer of the caltholic holiday called all saints day, (which honored saints and martyrs of the faith) it really has no redeeming qualities when you take a look at it’s origins. wow, bad stuff there.  and, no doubt there are some who still worship on this holiday, and they are definitely NOT honoring the saints or worshipping god.  but i’d have to say, the mainstream adoption of this holiday into our western culture is, for the most part, in good fun.  still, i have a fundamental hesitation.  and that is the extent that fear is celebrated.  fear is dangerous thing to dabble in.  what gives me pause is not the fun traditions but our human nature to be sucked in by fear.  humans like to be shocked; fear, to a certain extent, is part of what makes life exciting.  i have been so careful to teach cam to guard his eyes and ears every other day of the year and to be able to differentiate the healthy fear that challenges us in life from the dangerous fear that can be mentally and spiritually consuming.  is it ok to let my guard down on just this one occasion?  i know, just keep it all age appropraite, right?  but what happens when he gets into his teen years and age appropriate is not appropriate for anyone?  do i take a chance that i have taught him well enough to walk that fine of being entertained vs. being influenced?  should i not be concerned about that this one day – - well, month…. has the power to desensitise him to the kind of fear that is so completely unhealthy?  i mean that’s 1/12 of his time here on earth.

more questions than answers
admittedly, i haven’t answered much here.  not to mention, halloween is going to happen all around him, so it’s not like i can really keep him from this thing that gives me such pause.  couldn’t we just have fun and teach him to refrain from scary movies… and ouja boards?  you know, kind of like we play santa, and he knows it us, and he knows it’s not the real reason for the season.  i don’t know.  but i think this year we will not dress up and play halloween.  we will go to the county fair as usual and have free run of all the rides while everyone else is out trick-or-treating.  and, i will  have an honest conversation with cam about why we don’t celebrate halloween, and i will be honest about not having all the answers.  because that’s how our family gets through the tough questions.

ok, spill it…
how do you do, or not do, halloween?
set me on the straight and narrow.

haha.

ok. who do you look like?

i like to go back and read my old posts…. lets me know i’m still growing up. if you weren’t around back then, check out my take on being…

authentically immature

how do you define authenticity?
how do you define maturity?