Beaver Dam, MS-- As a child, I thoroughly enjoyed dressing up in funny homemade costumes and running to my grandparent’s house to “trick-or-treat.” My grandmother would always be so surprised that batman or spiderman or a ghost or even frankenstien was at her door. She would shriek with fear until I threw off my mask to reveal that her worst nightmare was not upon her. (As I got older, I witnessed my little brother and sisters do the same thing, and I became suspicious that maybe I had not scared her as much as I had previously thought.)
She had the most amazing treats-- those giant orange peanuts. The first 4 or 5 were so delicious, but I think the exposure to air does something to them as the 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th orange peanuts became increasingly horrid in taste.
It was always such a fun time… until I was about 12 or 13. That’s when Angela Martin informed me on the school bus that Halloween was a demon holiday. I was shocked. I had never participated in anything satanic as far as I knew. I just knew that the cornucopia of endless candy was available to me. My parents even let me stay up late and eat candy. We had fun making homemade costumes together, carving happy pumpkins together, and finding the perfect candy collection container. How could this be something bad? How could this be equated with demons? But it got me to thinking.
After I became aware of the shocking history of Halloween in the Encyclopedia Britannica (it used to be in books), I put a lot of thought into what the holiday really meant. I spent a lot of time thinking of my parents and how they seemed to have so much fun with the holiday. I began realizing it was probably all fake. It was then that my naïve celebrations of the holiday turned to more deeper spiritual questions. Why did my parents allow me to participate in this day? Since they were going along with what seemed to be innocent rituals, were they also secretly participating in the ancient not-so-innocent rituals of witchcraft? They had never given any indication of these awful things. However, I concluded that, because they were allowing me and my siblings to trick-or-treat and carve pumpkins it most definitely must also be the case that they were endorsing witchcraft.
Upon this realization, I immediately began questioning my Christian upbringing. Sure, those two “Christians” had brought me to church for 3 services a week for 13 years. Sure, they had read the Bible to me every night for, it seemed like, hours. Sure, every Sunday afternoon, I had to listen to an hour-long Calvinistic radio broadcast. But, since they allowed me to dress up as different characters (sometimes even a ghost) on Halloween once a year, I needed to know what these so called “Christians” were really all about behind the facade. So I began researching what was beneath this holiday of theirs.
I discovered all the terrible history of the day celebrated on October 31st. I discovered that the holiday, when celebrated 1000 years ago, was all about Baal. I discovered that, as part of the Druid festival, humans were sacrificed after being herded into thatched cages and set on fire. I discovered that the Druids 1000 years ago believed the dead would play tricks on mankind to cause destruction.
The more I thought about it, the more it became obvious to me that, since my parents allowed me to go door to door collecting candy and since I was allowed to carve pumpkins, then certainly they must also truly believe as the Druids of 1000 years ago. I therefore, upon discovering their real convictions, began practicing as a Druid. Despite the years of church services, family devotions, and extra home sermons on Sunday afternoons, I was wholly convinced that Druidism must be the true way. Year-round, I began all sorts of pagan rituals on my own. I began thinking deep, dark thoughts all the time. I found other Druids in my area and we would draw straws to see who would become the human sacrifice. I was certain that many destructive tricks played on Halloween night were the result of dead spirits.
It wasn’t until I was older, around the age of 16 or 17, when I stopped trick-or-treating and carving pumpkins, that I realized I had fallen for a Druid lie. When I stopped the trick-or-treating, when I stopped wearing the hard plastic Marvel Comic character masks with the rubber band stapled by each ear to stretch across the back of my head and get twisted in my hair… it wasn’t until I stopped trick or treating and costuming and all the other bad things that we do on Halloween, that I came to my senses and stopped participating in the Druid rituals. I realize now that it was the trick-or-treating door to door that caused me to slip into Druid forms of worship. When the trick-or-treating stopped, the desire to worship idols also ended. It was no coincidence.
So please allow this to be a warning to all of you parents who are considering carving pumpkins this Halloween. Don’t do it! It may confuse your children as it confused me. It may cause them to slip into idol worship and human sacrifice.
Instead, be consistent with your beliefs, take them to a “Fall Celebration” or a “Fall Festival” or a “Harvest Time”, but never refer to such activities as Halloween.
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar