The Joy in Halloween and Christmas

I am truly amazed sometimes as to just how busy life can be. With all the good intentions of wanting to keep up with all the daily tasks that need to be done, life just seems to slip by quickly and before we know it days and even weeks have passed. There are times that  I long for 48 hour days in order to just catch up a little, but then I would probably just find even more to do. So I guess the answer is to make sure that the things we busy our selves with also add some enjoyment to our lives so we feel that the life we are living is worthwhile.

I adopt this attitude with most of what I do and try hard to find what is good in everything and everyone, and it's not always easy, but it does help me look at every situation with a little more openness.

Take Halloween for example; as a Christian, youth pastor, dad, retail business owner and author of a book discussing demons, angels and the spirit realm; Halloween itself holds many conflicts of beliefs that others feel I should have some big problems with; and yet I don't. My attitude towards Halloween becomes a continual discussion to many of my customers, readers and Christian friends, because they all know that I have a strong faith in God and very much live a life reflecting what Jesus teaches, yet I still sell Halloween stuff, decorate my house in a comedy style and let my family dress up to enjoy the evening.

What's hard to explain to others though is the idea that for me the spiritual world exists every day of the entire year, not just the one night of Halloween. Ghosts, demons, spirits, and all the rest don't simply appear the one night of the year that people dress like them, they exist always. But for the short period before halloween, people get excited about life and have a little fun. Most are not celebrating the day of the dead, they are just trying to find a little enjoyment in life and an excuse to eat some candy.

It's kind of like Christmas and us celebrating Jesus birth; Jesus exists every other day too and the idea of loving one another and sharing hope and joy, should also happen year round. However, people get so busy with their own lives the rest of the year that it takes Christmas to remind us to think of each other and take the time to spend with each other because life is short and we all need to enjoy some of it.

So if the point is take the time to find some true happiness and spend time with others, then does it matter whether we dress up in halloween costumes or in Mary, Joseph, shepherd and wise man costumes. Instead we should be focusing on the things that encourage people to find hope, joy and friendship; all of which looks for what is good in others rather than what is wrong with them. I will admit that I am not a fan of how some of the partying around both holidays leads to drunkeness and excessive behaviors that only cause more separation, problems and loneliness; but most of the time people find some encouragement if they don't give in to such excessiveness.

As I have mentioned before the spiritual world exists all around us whether we believe it or not and every day of the year. And there are certain times of the year like Halloween that this activity seems closer then other times, simply because more people are focusing on it and believing in it. All that really changes is that people turn their focus onto the Joys and expenses of Christmas instead. The same spirits are still there, but they just don't receive the same attention, and perhaps end up working a bit harder to get some of the attention back. Which is often done by reminding people of what they don't have, how lonely their life is or perhaps what things they really deserve. Then of course people become frustrated, angry and bitter rather then taking time to find friendship, happiness and fun.

Perhaps what each of these holiday's come down to can be found in the simple understanding of what we personally choose to allow to influence us. We can allow other people to bring us down and frustrate us with their own expectations and hang-ups; or we can see them as people who are maybe lonely and hurting that may possibly need something to make them laugh and have a little fun. So maybe we can be the one to help them smile by choosing to look for what is good and joyful about every situation.

We can also choose to allow the spirits and demons to influence us negatively, bringing us down, frustrated, jealous and even using us to affect others negatively. Or we can pay attention to the thoughts that seem to be whispered into our ears and planted in our dreams that then frustrate, or make us feel angry, lonely or worthless. Then we can learn to combat those whispers and stop letting them influence us, by looking for what is good and purposefully spending our time and energy to build the friendships we are looking for and find what is good and worthy within ourselves.

Perhaps if we could all look at life this way we could see an incredible change throughout the world.

Just a thought anyways.