Bad Moon Rising

I was thinking as I drove home from work on Friday, that even if cars end up eating the ozone layer and baking us all to a crisp, in some way, God has sanctioned their existence in the pleasure that a dog experiences when he sticks his head out the window.

Mallory responded to this thought by asking why it is that dogs love sticking their heads out the window of a moving vehicle, but they hate it if you blow in their faces....

What Has Jesus to do With Halloween

Every Sunday the bulletin at Divine Redeemer makes me smile. This week, among other things, it advertised a church sponsored haunted house. That's right, not a Fall Festival, not Trunk-or-Treat, but an honest to goodness, scare the pants off you, vampires and werewolves, haunted house.

One of the many thing I love about the church is that they take humanity as it is and go from there. They don't start with the assumption that if we know Jesus we're perfect already and just need to be kept that way.

Championing Halloween shouldn't just be the job of the Catholic Church though, Christianity in general should realize what a perfect opportunity for evangelism it is when, for a month out of the year, everyone in America acknowledges the existence of a spiritual reality.

I don't know about you, but I would much rather talk to a pantheist or the pagan about Christianity than an agnostic or an atheist. At least the devil-worshipper is working with all the same dimensions of reality as the Christian. They acknowledge that a spiritual world exists and that it interacts with the physical world in a meaningful way.

Every child, unless otherwise guided, by the age of 12 will have a fully developed set of pantheistic beliefs. They'll see God in nature, in music, in their friends and family. They'll see evil in the destroying power of divorce and family strife, in ignorance and hatred, in alcohol and even in the fact that the more they know, the less sun-shiny their world seems. Everyone feels the transcendent in music, in physical exertion, in the fuzzy feelings of a first love, the rush of the wind and a warm summer rain. It is only our teenage years or an earlier and more unnatural introduction to materialism that will either make us cling to our false gods or throw them, along with our stuffed animals and LEGOs into an attic, only to be held from that point forward with nostalgia rather than a truly spiritual fascination.

There is something so hard-hearted about not believing in any spiritual reality of any sort, and something ignorant about a Christianity that doesn't realize the real spiritual good that Harry Potter, Eragon, and Halloween are doing.

Christians should be able to embrace Halloween as the only time the most people will acknowledge that a spiritual reality exists at all.

It's amazing how much the shadow tells us about the light and how ineffectual a battle we would be fighting if we set out to conquer rap music, immodest clothing and fast food without allowing Christians and non-Christians alike to see that our battle "is not against enemies of flesh and blood...but against the spiritual forces of darkness of this present age."

Also, the bulletin announced that the Colorado Springs Catholic Young Adult Group would have their monthly "Theology on Tap" meeting at Jack Quinn's at 7pm on Wednesday. Nothing like a Bible study at an Irish pub. Seriously. These people really know what's up.

Your Halloween video:

Good People

I was browsing facebook today and I came across a post on someone's wall and I was like "who's this joker with his rectangular-framed glasses and goatee/beard facial-weasel". Then I realized that I'm not the twelve year old with a bowl cut that I see in my mind's eye. I'm a 22 year old with rectangular-framed glasses and a goatee/beard facial-weasel. Huh...

Just My Shoes

When I got home Friday from school to an empty house I was ecstatic. I cranked some tunes, grabbed a trashbag and the vacuum and attacked Brad's former room with hurricane force. After vacuuming and dancing around in my underwears for a couple hours I realized that I was alone. No Brad. No Leroy. It was Friday night, it was pouring rain, and I had no idea what I was going to do with myself.

I woke up about 2 hours later when Vivian called and luckily at the same time I got a voicemail from Jose saying that he wanted to come down for the day on Saturday.

We ended up going to the Cave of the Winds to do a lantern tour. It was a good day. It would have been a great day if we could have just explored the caves by ourselves, but at least with the guide there we got to hear about what sort of a life someone has who violates Native American superstitious taboos and keeps a mummy in the cave he found. Afterwards we went for pizza at Poor Richard's (a combination bookstore, pizza-place, toy store, and chocolate and wine bar). Emily Dickinson's poetic wiles finally got the best of me and bought her collected poems. That should tide me over for the dateless couple months that lie ahead of me. Good pie, good scenery, good company, and good conversation, not a bad way to complete my goal for the week.

But now Brad and Leroy are gone, Jose left this afternoon after lunch at Chipotle and he'll be headed home after this upcoming work week, and BoyScout will hopefully be visiting the Springs this Wednesday and then heading back to Hillsdale. There go all my summer buddies. Time to get friendly with the locals.

On that note:

Jose and I did the Sunday circuit today, attending, once again, both Divine Redeemer Catholic Church and New Life. Divine Redeemer was pretty good today: a nice mix of music, a homily about being patient which included a rebuke against those people who just walk out after Communion, and a special presentation from a couple who recently moved here from, of all places, Michigan. New Life also had a special guest, also from Michigan. The music was a bit too fast for me today and the sermon a bit too slow, but that's the way it is.

So, here's the rub: New Life small groups (there are about 100 different groups to join, not kidding) start next Sunday and Divine Redeemer's RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults) classes start Sept. 6th, and, being the over-achiever that I am, I want to do both. Again, I'll be going to RCIA for the Trinity and to small group for the fellowship, but twice as much church, that can't be wrong, right? Let me know your thoughts on this. I just don't know if you can cheat on Jesus with Jesus. I mean if you were to have your wife...okay, we shouldn't make an analogy of that.

It occurred to me today as I left the sanctuary at Divine Redeemer and looked at their "max. capacity" sign that at some point this church placed an order for 8,419 interlocking chairs.

P.S. Who wants to go see this movie with me?