“That’s the Day that Leaves Fell Down in Denver,” to the tune of “That’s the Night that the Lights Went Out in Georgia” ;)
October 7 :: Kai and I picnic in the backyard. The leaves were changing color right before our eyes. However, the Aspens, just to the left – still green.
October 22 :: The yard is ablaze with every autumn hue.
November 8 :: Just another pretty (blue sky) day in Denver
But today…November 10th :: the north wind blows, the temp drops 30-degrees in a few hours and the flakes start to fall.
We hit our high of 64 degrees at about 7:30 am this morning.
The Aspen leaves, the last of them that have held on for all they’re worth, the ones that have waved at me happily with each gentle breeze as the sweetest autumn days have drifted by – they are getting kicked out on their butts! Today is the day, I am thinking.
I’d say the Aspens were at about 50% leafery (made-up word) on Saturday. But that harsh, cold, north wind (thanks a lot, North Dakota) is changing everything…wait…I just saw snowflakes…!!!
{Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr}
The BEST version of “Autumn Leaves” on the planet:
By the incredible, late Eva Cassidy. In honor of a wholly gorgeous 2014 fall season…This is the way I sing it around the house or at the keyboard. It is the MOST beautiful!
This weather re-cap has been brought to you by a woman who hates winter, but who lives in a wintry state.
Ay-yi-yi. Just clinging to my fair-weather memories.
Except, I do have thoughts. That is why – this blog. But sometimes life is careening with such force and speed, the thoughts, the observations and ideas – well, they just zoom on by and I can only retain the barest interpretation of them.
Such is this week.
I get so romantic about the autumnal season
Also the back yard yesterday. No kidding – I got to see all these colors including that Colorado blue sky!
I go out in the cool breeze of night and watch the leaves drifting down and start composing silly poetry in my head like this:
When the breeze picks up and the leaves fall down
And the Jack ‘O Lanterns are scowling all around town…
There is actually much more, and maybe one day I’ll share it with the grandbebes, but I’m no poet. I know it. ;) So for today, we’ll leave it here. Bet you’re wondering what was going to happen, aren’t you?
Which leads me to this question: Would Dr. Seuss be able to find a publisher these days? I mean – he just made up words to make them rhyme.
See how random things just barrel through?
The song of the month: Autumn Leaves {of course}
I love the song. I first loved the song, as a child, when I heard Roger Williams piano version (my Grandma gave me his album). To find it had actual words, not that many years ago, was a bonus. It was originally in French (1945), and all the greats have recorded it. Jo Stafford (one of my favs) was first, but then Edith Piaf (who did both an English and a French version), Diana Krall (she makes all songs amazing), Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Jerry Lee Lewis, Eric Clapton – they all have recorded it. Eva Cassidy, too.
Kai did not want to model
And I have spent the entire month of October singing it and plunking around on the keyboard playing it. Rocky told me to come to his office and he’d play the guitar and mix my voice (read: tune me up and make me sound good) in his studio. But who has time for that? Neither he nor I.
I get more wordy and gooey each autumn
I have been blogging since 2006, so you’d think by now I wouldn’t have a clue what all I have said. But I always do recall, each fall, that I get a little more, shall we say, descriptive, come autumn. I become quite melancholy and overcome with passion for the season.
Proof:
I ponder autumn red, quote Marilyn Monroe and dissertate on being a woman in the autumn of her life. {{see here}}
In “Delicious Autumn,” I quote George Eliot and tumble head-over-heels into a sensory love affair with nostalgia – the sights, the smells, the tastes, the feels, the sounds of youth faded…while visiting my parents. Haha. {{see it here}}
I’ve often written about October being orange. But in looking back, I do also pay my respects to the reds of October. This one is an homage to red, to “a fully florid, cherry, sanguine scarlet. A puce, a rufescent russet, a bloody, blushing, gushing, infrared hot pink mixed with flaming chestnut and rubies and gleaming copper, all at once…shimmering and iridescent fuchsia, yet dense and heavy garnet, a ruby…bittersweet in both color and the evoking of raw autumn melancholy.” And etc! :){{see it here}}
Two years ago this very day, {{THIS}} was happening. The grandbebes and a little weather forecast. I remember that light, those leaves…
Oh, there are many more fall, autumn, October posts. Some November, too. And miles of words down roads of the romance of the season. But I’ll let this part go with those few examples.
I voted.
Oh how I love getting to vote in the convenient location of my home. And mailing it in…wait, did I remember to mail it? I will say that I wish I could change one of my amendment-issue votes because I researched a bit more later and I think I may have been…*w*r*o*n*g*!??
That is (1) highly unusual, and (2) growth for me…to think that I maybe/might have been/possibly was/super-small chance that I was ever-so-slightly wrong, but instead of demanding a fresh ballot, I’m just going with the flow. It is what it is. And really, in light of SO MANY OTHER PEOPLE VOTING WRONG ALL THE TIME, this one minor issue is of little consequence. Just kidding…about other people’s votes. Maybe.
So now, if all the political ads would kindly remove themselves from my presence. Thank-you very much.
Oh, and I won’t tell you how I voted. No. You couldn’t guess if you tried because I am an independent. Do not try to fence me in!
BUT if she wants to hire me for her campaign, “Carly Fiorina for President!” On women, 53% of voters: “We are not a special-interest, single-issue constituency. We are half the country.” up-project.org
I was in the country the other day
The burning bushes are on fire!
The cows were mooing and a tractor was motoring by. The smell of manure was in the air and a pretty gray cat with grass-green eyes came by to say hi {totally unaware that I am not a cat person, apparently}. The sun was sweet and you could see miles of mountains from there. And even though life was happening all around and “town” was just 3 miles away, it was quiet. So quiet. I think I was made for the country.
A {Country Baby} came to see me.
Sawyer with Guini and Gemma
Two of them in fact, with their parents. Sawyer and Wryder were here visiting from Holyoke. That is country. The term Country Baby comes from one of my fav old movies, Baby Boom, with Diane Keaton. Do you remember that movie? I think that is a good movie to watch near the end of October.
Arsenic and Old Lace
And always-always-always try to view Cary Grant in Arsenic and Old Lacenear Halloween. Because. Cary Grant. He is hilarious in it and scary-good-looking!
It s such a great old black and white flick!
I miss my mom over there in Hoosier-land.
I have been so busy I haven’t had a chance to tell you a million little details about my time in NW Indiana recently (in Chicago-land). It was so windy the last day there, but I held on to my mamala for dear life. In this photo I was thinking, “Oh I love her and I will miss her.” And I was so right. On both counts.
Since the Cardinals did not make the World Series, we are for the Kansas City Royals.
Got it? OK!
I love baseball. I miss my dad, too, because we watched a lot of baseball while I was there. But he can’t take seeing his teams lose, so we missed some great comebacks. Oh, pops. ;)Cardinals forever, anyway!
I threw caution to the wind and listed my Jeanie-green ornate, Baroque, Italianate, solid wood, custom-built green coffee table on Craigslist.
I think I am changing my mind. Because, I mean – even the paint was custom-mixed for ME, to match a sliver of a piece of one of the grandbebe’s art pieces. I don’t know if I can let it go?
A thought about relationships…
Tara brought me a bouquet of flowers just before my birthday, more than 2 weeks ago. It was a huge bouquet of purple lilies, hydrangea, lavender statice, various mums and Gerber daisies. Stormie brought me a big mums-filled bouquet a couple of days later, as seen on the coffee table, above (those fall mums will go on forever!).
At day 17, the purple bouquet from Tara – a third of its original size, yet still lovely.
I have never been one of those women who needs her husband to bring her flowers, though I enjoy the surprise of them, like anyone. I get joy from growing things in the ground.
But both of these bouquets made me so happy and are still bringing me a smiles, light, bright joyful remembrances of warm thoughts and pure love shown towards me.
And while a fresh bouquet is glorious, people often throw the whole thing away when a few of the buds begin to age or drop. But you miss something when you do that. There is still so much beauty there. Yes, the “fussier” parts of the bouquet are long gone. But in just the minute or so it takes me daily to tend to the arrangement, to remove drooping leaves or a dead-headed flower, then to snip the ends and add fresh water, in less than a minute, I have revived the bouquet. It looks a little different each time, some of the filler going away, but its beauty remains and I get to enjoy them much longer.
It is the same with the people we love and the relationships that mean something. Even if things are different now than they once were, a love or friendship worth having is worth tending regularly.
You could just let it go to waste, throwing away wilting expectations and brushing off the dust of disappointment. But you could also decide to spend just a few minutes tending and repairing, loving and caring. And in a very short time you might be made glad by the beauty of it again. Maybe it won’t look like what it once did, as busy and full, but that is OK, too, I think.
Love with all you’ve got while you can.
There are so many leaves falling in this post, you may have to rake now.
I shall bring this to close (I’m a preacher’s daughter and that’s what they all say), but of course, you NEED an autumn quote, yes? Then this, from F. Scott Fitzgerald, “Life starts all over again, when it gets crisp in the fall.” Remember, I told you? October is the new January!
I get melancholy in the fall. I fall in love with the smells and sights and sounds and the changing leaves. It is ridiculous. But true. Below are parts of a few different things I mentioned about fall and the autumn leaves along the way…
Glory. That is the color of fall. What started green and bright and light, unfurling after a stark winter, now reaches its’ full and most beautiful stage, and having held on with strength and determination throughout the summer, through both drought and drenching rains, now falls, now tumbles. Now, peacefully and content with itself, dances right down before me, a gift. Glory. {{READ ENTIRE POST HERE}}
I feel things more deeply at this ripe and fruitful time of my life. I feel like a full-grown woman, as opposed to some foolish girl, a woman who knows her mind and risks her thunderous-beating heart to more vulnerability and tenderness than I’d have allowed when younger. And my experience in life and love and heartbreak and second chances have made me more deeply passionate and compassionate and warm. I’m old enough now to understand the rich treasure my nurturing provides for those who are lucky enough to be planted in my heart and the wildly increased ability I now have to love. {{SEE FULL POST HERE}}
I have chased autumn into a Missouri mood that lingers like musk on my skin. I have escaped to turning-leaves on proud trees and the deep intensity of autumn colors that hold both the memory of exuberant youth with its’ fresh, green-spring growth, and the exploding red-to-the-core ripeness of the late summer tomato, now seasoned to a complex beauty, indisputably richer and wiser for the aging. The blazing urgency of the season, so much to experience before it all passes into winter, is salty on my tongue. I inhale the cinnamon-scented air, and taste the pungent, spicy and intangible gift of the equinox while the crickets sing that haunting song I have always loved.
Burnt sienna and ochre rustle restlessly as autumn falls and the cool night air sprinkles wet diamonds onto my keyboard and into my mouth filling my lungs with cool, brisk air and enduring toasted warmth at once. Halley’s Comet spilled burning meteor fragments in the wee hours, punctuating the night sky with light, a spectacle for late-night lovers young and old. {{SEE FULL POST HERE}}
Hey, remember the meteor showers that year? CLICK HERE
I got to spend the weekend at the Powers family cabin near Peaceful Valley in the Rocky Mountains (thank-you! thank-you! thank-you!). For over 11 hours on Saturday, I sat near the rushing river tumbling down boulders and powering it’s way through fallen branches and sharp rocks in dappled sunlight that warmed my skin while the gentlest of breezes brought cool refreshment. I read and sang and thought and rested and listened and wondered and cried and smiled and prayed. In that setting, you cannot help but be drawn into spontaneous conversations with God. The evergreens, greatly varied in their hues, all strong and tall were punctuated by Aspens I am certain I could actually see changing color before my eyes – a bit more colorful hour by hour.
The underbrush, having gotten an earlier start is already deep oranges and reds, even browns and purples. Brilliant berries are being found out by small birds which, having swiped a treasure as such from the bush quickly flies to a needle-rich pine branch nearby and looks for all the world as if I have just opened a Christmas card…”Oh! May the God of green-hope fill you up with joy, fill you up with peace, so that your believing-lives, filled with the life-giving energy of the Holy Spirit, will brim over with hope!” (That’s in The Message, Romans 15) {{SEE ENTIRE POST HERE}}
Then just some miscellaneous quotes about the fall season from various blog posts:
“I like October for the crimson and pumpkin, for the eggplant and rust, and all the colors of the deepening, mature, lusty, whole and passionate part of the year when the autumn moon hangs heavy in the sky like the warm embraces of a tattered, weighty quilt sewn years ago for the need of heat and not some contest of a county fair. Have you ever been covered in one of those?” {{10.22.13}}
“Today is mostly yellow with a smattering of red, turning into deep wine by late afternoon. A steady falling of leaves with a call for possible white-flakes on Thursday afternoon and a blast of cold-blue air which will effectively ruin the perfectly coiffed-in-color hues for Autumn 2012.” {{10.23.12}}
October is orange. Of course. But it is also a red that is so full of depth and dimension and fiery-variance it can hardly be described.
My neighbor’s Maple has languoriously (not a real word, I know), gone from deep late-summer green, the leaves still fully affixed due to mild fall days and nights, to a light-to-deepening golden peach-to-orange over the past week. Then yesterday, I swear, as I walked back into the family room with a hot cup of coffee, it went red. Just like that, before my eyes. It nearly took my breath away. Moments before, a glowing, lovely amber-rusty orange, then, poof.
Red. A fully florid, cherry, sanguine scarlet. A puce, a rufescent russet, a bloody, blushing, gushing, infrared hot pink mixed with flaming chestnut and rubies and gleaming copper, all at once. It is shimmering and iridescent fuchsia, yet dense and heavy garnet, a ruby. It is bittersweet in both color and the evoking of raw autumn melancholy. [So, it’s red, right?] {{10.17.11}}
My mom and I were drinking coffee on the deck this morning and enjoying the rustling leaves in their fall coat-of-many-colors. Autumn is romantic. This is from my mama’s heart and mind:
“The butterflies are taking one last dance across the meadow. Please hurry back, I’ll see you in the spring…” -Norma Moslander {{10.21.09}}
I quite obviously become a waterfall of words come autumn. This year has been splendid! Good job, Autumn!
This image looks really early 1900s. I google-searched for poets named “Mamie” and there are actually quite a few.
I like October because it reminds me of innocent childhood, shuffling through piles of leaves on the way to school, before the days when people felt the incessant need to banish the sight of them immediately at all costs. Have you noticed, in these newer neighborhoods, it’s almost impossible to get a decent pile for jumping in?
Because I’m still in love with you
I want to see you dance again
Because I’m still in love with you
On this harvest moon. (Neil Young, lyrics – Harvest Moon)
I like October for the crimson and pumpkin, for the eggplant and rust, and all the colors of the deepening, mature, lusty, whole and passionate part of the year when the autumn moon hangs heavy in the sky like the warm embraces of a tattered, weighty quilt sewn years ago for the need of heat and not some contest of a county fair. Have you ever been covered in one of those?
I like October because the coffee is richer, the evening cricket is less frantic, more rhythmic. The sun slants and schedules fall into an easy ritual, the day in and day out are much more organized. Tans fade, memories are made, soup is stirred, cakes are baked, sweaters come out and life is rich.
Well, it’s a marvelous night for a moondance
With the stars up above in your eyes
A fantabulous night to make romance
‘Neath the cover of October skies (Moondance, Van Morrison)
I like October because my neighbor’s Maple tree explodes into multichromatic, vibrance and dances merrily in a dazzling production for me through my big window each time I walk through the room. From dark, living green to lime to yellow to orange to scarlet to blood-red and back. Then, just as all the colors begin to subside, like the finale of a summer fireworks display, a wind scatters the leaves far and wide and they glide and twirl and settle on the lawns with a promise to do it all again – same time next year.
The tree of which I speak…from the window (this was 2 years ago)
I do like October. Love it, even.
And yes, in all of it, like the poet said, “the opulent Giver I see.”
Which turned out w a a a a a y better than they should have for my little $69.99 Kodak digital camera.
Check out this weed. This was in the mountains when Dave and I were there a few weeks back. It was getting ready to spread its’ seed everywhere. I just like how it captured the almost explosive-movement. No touch-ups. Just this. As weeds go, pretty lovely.
And then these two. With really good cameras you can adjust the focus so that the things you aren’t focusing on are blurry, out-of-focus. I do not have that option. But my camera, for some strange reason. did that anyway. I think I may have been zoomed, I am not sure. But I love how it blurred the background. These are not touched up. If I’d known I’d stumbled into something, I’d have tried more of whatever it was. *smile
Look at that crazy-awesome background blur.
Secondly, Hunter enjoyed trying a feather and ink for alphabet writing recently.
Thirdly, Peaches & Cream, from Palizzi Farm. As amazingly sweet and delectable as it sounds.
I LOVE corn on the cob. Did you know that? Love it. It is the Iowa girl in me.
Here they come, walking down the street. Get the funniest looks from – everyone they meet. Hey-hey for grandkids!
All together now – JUMP!
Remember when we were kids and adults made us smile for pictures when the sun was totally in our eyes? Yeah, well, now I have done that to my own grandbebes. I just thought they should experience it. Haha.
Peek-a-boo, little monkeys
Gemma drew her family
And other things.
Granddaughters are sweeeeet!
Little tiny Amelie walloped her cousin, Gavin, the other day and when her daddy said, “Amelie-no hitting,” she crossed her arms and lowered her shoulders with a decided **harrumph** and plopped herself down. It is hilarious thing to see such an itty-bitty pull such a big-girl move. It probably won’t be that cute 6 months from now, but it sure was this week.
Tredessa got her dress. And I can’t show you, of course, but she is beautiful in it.
Engagement to her cute guy? Check. Amazing ring? Check. Location for the wedding (a barn!!)? Check. Dress? Check.
This is just wrong. Right? Probably. But it is evidence that the grandkids were here.
THIS? Is a good morning sight! Fresh from the garden!
I should mention, I had just dropped the green beans into boiling water for 10 seconds and then quickly submerged them into ice water to shock them green-green and make them positively delectable for random all-day-long munching. Mmm. Mm. Mm!
And in honor of the first day of autumn, I am making red beans and rice and missing my brother, Joe, whose gorgeous first born will walk down the aisle tomorrow to be married. {Mrs. Elise Leonard, aka Elise-the-Niece}
You’re just going along, enjoying summer living, and then the veins of the leaves go blood red and begin pumping color into a random branch here or there. Fascinating!
“I can picture it in my mind’s eye and it’s beautiful, Clark.” (Christmas Vacation) I can also see it here at my blog and remember and smile.
Overall, pretty lame, as Keanu {so very cute, but seemingly pretty empty-ish and not much good at dramatic parts), plus the melodramatic storyline will most usually end up (did you recall hoiw much hope I had for “A Walk in the Clouds”? *sigh…). Anyhow, rather unsatisfactory and weird story, but a few interesting quotes I am fond of and the title is nice! ;p
Nelson: Why a month? Sara: Because it’s long enough to be meaningful, but short enough to stay out of trouble.
Nelson: Try to be wrong once in awhile. It’d do my ego good.
Sara: You’re my immortality, Nelson.
Sara: Nelson, do you want to be my November? Nelson: Yes.
Nelson: November is all I know, and all I ever want to know.
Nelson: This is it. Life will never be better or sweeter than this.
If only the movie had been as lovely as these lines…FYI: A really really great movie to see each November is “Pieces of April” starring Katie Holmes. It is a sweet Thanksgiving movie (thank-you Rob and Carol Ann for introducing me to it!).
PICTURED: The K-kids – Gavin, Guinivere and Gemma; and Hunter-Magoo!
Yes. I do. I h a t e it. This is my nearly-2000-word {highly-opinionated} essay (w/no pictures) on WHY~
I don’t hate little kids, all cute and dressed up coming to my door with an open bag. That actually requires a lot of trust in this day and age and I look at it as a chance to bless the little children, a chance to be a nice neighbor. Trick-or-treating does not bother me, really, because the kids (young kids only, please – you kids that are old enough to work – go buy your own dang candy) are just excited to get to wear a costume and eat more candy than they should. I hate, literally loath, despise and abominate Halloween, but maybe for reasons different than you’d imagine…
The Horror of Retail {mwa, mwa, mwa….}
For 5 years I ran a retail party store. Halloween was the BIG ONE. It drove our sales for the year and I had to be number one (I just HAD TO!…andwas!!, ok – strike that last prideful statement), so can you imagine my deep loathing for both milking-Halloween-for-all-it-was-worth for the money we could rake in and just hating the symbols that have come to represent it all? I set everything and worked my head off (can you say 90+ hours a week during the evil-season??) to sell to people who would purchase useless styro-headstones, “bloody” goblets and giant fuzzy spiders. Fog machines were the biggest rip-off and anything witchy-skeletony-or-ghoulish you could add double-D batteries to so it would light up or make some horrific noise were big sellers.
And then there were the costumes. We sold all those crappy costumes plus face paint and fake blood, stitches, etc.
And people would FILL those carts and spend hundreds of dollars. I both loved racking up the sales AND I disrespected seeing people waste that much money on something like Halloween, a “holiday” that really celebrates nothing that means eternal anything to me.
The worst part though? The company “encouraged” (read: forced) us to “dress up” – the whole month of October! It is fun for like, three days. The other 28, not so much. I have been a nun, a gypsy, a bunch of grapes. There were platinum blond wigs, Cleopatra headdresses and hot pink beehives. I was never “evil,” just dressed, all the while managing a hopping Halloween staff, chasing shoplifters, receiving Christmas and trying to make that transition as fast as humanly possible and just gritting my green-hick-farmer teeth to get through.
Suffice it to say I had more Halloween than I ever wanted and enough to last 37 people a lifetime. Yuck.
The Great Halloween Debate
And to top it off, I have spent almost a lifetime in the middle of the great Halloween debate: Is it OK for Christians to Participate?? OR Is it an evil-pagan holiday dedicated to devil-worship that we should avoid at all costs? I gotta tell you, I DO wish to avoid it all costs, but not for spiritual reasons, necessarily because the devil doesn’t own my days – not any of them. Dare I say I think it falls under the Romans 14 directive for disputable matters?…I do. Let the stoning begin…
Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so!
This year my home church decided not to have the Halloween alternative they usually have. And nobody knows quite what to do.
When I was growing up (in my very Christian, very strict Pentecostal preacher’s home), our parents let us trick-or-treat. In retrospect, that seems crazy. I couldn’t cut my hair, wear make-up or listen to the radio, at least “legally”, but I got to trick-or-treat. Strange. The church hadn’t been super-sensitized to the meanings and origins of the day back then. They still really thought it was just kids dressing up and getting lots of candy. And even after it became a “test of righteousness” in Christian circles, the churches my dad pastored still usually offered an alternative like a “Harvest Fest” with fall activities and the kiddos dressing up. I remember church bulletins reminding everyone that no “ghosts, ghouls or goblins” were allowed to attend, but costumes were welcomed.
Dave’s family was an absolutely-not Halloween family. I was from the use-the-opportunity-to-witness stream. My earliest memories are of my mom explaining to me that I had to do a “trick” to get a “treat,” and wow, was I ever willing! My trick was always to sing a song of some sort and since we didn’t do secular music, my song always had something to do with Jesus. The first year I could sing it all, I did – at every. single. house. “…for the Bible tells me so.” Deep breath, the person tries to give me candy, I whip my bag away from them , my mom reminds me, and whale on, “Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me!…” They were prisoners to the end. But I would not take that candy until I had witnessed of the Lord’s love the full way through.
Pagan Roots
It seems H’ween has its roots in pagan Celtic festivals, the Druids dancing around bonfires and offering sacrifices to the spirit world for the harvest. So actually – having a church “Harvest Festival” is not an improvement on Halloween, necessarily. During the ancient pagan fetsival, Candy Corn would begin to fall from the sky, just kidding…just checking to see if you are still reading. ;p Haha.
In the 8th century, the Pope moved All Saint’s Day to November 1, so October 31st became “All Hallows Eve” and most people think he did it to claim the 31st back for Christians, which frankly, I applaud. What I bind on earth is bound both here and in heaven. We do have some authority in Jesus’ Name, people!
I digress.
So, then there is a biblical scripture-storm that erupts annually against having any part. One of the scriptures often cited is Ephesians 5.7-12 NLT:
7 Don’t participate in the things these people do. 8 For once you were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord. So live as people of light! 9 For this light within you produces only what is good and right and true.
10 Carefully determine what pleases the Lord. 11 Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness; instead, expose them. 12 It is shameful even to talk about the things that ungodly people do in secret.
Or, there is Deuteronomy 18.10-12 NLT
10 For example, never sacrifice your son or daughter as a burnt offering. And do not let your people practice fortune-telling, or use sorcery, or interpret omens, or engage in witchcraft, 11 or cast spells, or function as mediums or psychics, or call forth the spirits of the dead. 12 Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord. It is because the other nations have done these detestable things that the Lord your God will drive them out ahead of you.
And there are lots of other verses that are used to promote total abstinence from any type of Halloween participation. And they are important scriptures with definite guidelines for what we should and shouldn’t be participating in. But I honestly don’t see them saying “Little kids dressing up and trick-or-treating is anti-scriptural.” I just don’t. My grandbebes, who will dress as Nacho Libre or a Strawberry or as princesses or Batman this year? They will NOT be calling forth spirits of the dead or hosting seances. We will not sacrifice them as burnt offerings. They will NOT participate in drunken parties and godlessness of that sort and I will teach them to speak up for righteousness through their vote as citizens and to protect the helpless and feed the hungry. That is how they are being raised. They are being raised to be who God created them to be (light!) and to do what God has ordained for them to do and to fulfill their destiny for God in their generation. Period!
The devil doesn’t get my grandbebes. I truly and humbly do not see trick-or-treating as the step into a dark realm. If anything, I see it as “Hallowed,” like the old Pope wanted it to be because he went to enemy’s camp and took back what was stolen (know that song? Don’t make me sing it here!). My days are the LORD’S. All of them! And it is a great time to show our babies the difference between light and darkness by not worshipping death, not giving in to demonic influence and avoiding rebelliousness (which is as the sin of witchcraft and rarely gets corrected in Christendom).
Renunciation.
You know what, though? If you came from an occultic background where you used the 31st as part of demon worship and you have walked away from it being born into Christ and you have renounced that past – by all means, don’t participate. It holds something for you it doesn’t for me. Don’t be enslaved into any bondage you have been delivered from again! I would stand with you in that, and I mean that! Or if you just have a strong conviction that you don’t want your family to participate, because to you, it seems like being part of an agreement with the world, part of this godless generation and you’d rather make a stand here – then make that stand. I support you in that, but Romans 14, again…
Figure it out. Study it through. Pray. Ask the Lord. Listen. And be obedient there and let’s not let a disputable matter polarize us as Christians, or get us fighting one another in scriptural-sword fighting. Because? Then the stupid-head devil wins. Geesh, people – it is when he breaks our unity that we are trashed – not when some low-level demon flies around a room impressing the idiots who want that sort of thing. RESIST HIM, seriously. He HAS to flee!
I loathe, despise and abominate* Halloween because of how it separates us and causes holier-then-thou crap and we make each other the enemy instead of THE enemy. And I hate all the blackness and darkness because I am of the Light, but oh, by the way, I shine ever so much more brightly in the dark places. I say kick-him-in-the-butt and bless the little children when they come to your door: give the best candy, the biggest smile, the greatest encouragement and give ’em a God-bless-you, because that actually is within your power to do. Heaven will hear and attend to your blessing! May His will be done on earth as it is in heaven! On Halloween, even!
‘Nuff said.
*In the book version of Meet Me in St Louis, the sisters show their distaste for things by saying “I hate, loathe, despise and abominate {fill-in-the-blank}”. I think it is used a time or two in the Judy Garland movie, too. It is a fav family quote.
“Live as people of light!”
RT @ pastormark via ryan may: “If you’re one of those Christians who is going to give out tracts for Halloween, also give enough candy to make a kid a diabetic!” Haha!
My “leaf-is-falling-but-not-really” photoshoot in the backyard. ;p
It had actually already fallen. I was just replicating it a little {camera in my right hand, leaf stem in my left}.
I quit watering the veggies when I went to Montana over a month ago. I have been gathering regularly ever since, as the vegetable garden seeks to proliferate madly before the end. Then the rainy nights came and they thought they had been asked to stay a while longer. It pains me to tell them no, but I must. Until the spring, my sweet veggies – just until the spring…
“Well, it’s a marvelous night for a Moondance
With the stars up above in your eyes
A fantabulous night to make romance
‘Neath the cover of October skies
And all the leaves on the trees are falling
To the sound of the breezes that blow
And I’m trying to please to the calling
Of your heart-strings that play soft and low
And all the night’s magic seems to whisper and hush
And all the soft moonlight seems to shine in your blush.”
“Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.” ~George Eliot
I am visiting my parents in Springfield.
Two days ago I watched my backyard Aspens flutter dark green to yellow in one day. I swear it. The leaves were turning that fast, hourly lighter and brighter in color. Today it is snowing in Denver, really snowing, they say. By next week the naked branches, up to their knees in brown crunchiness, will glare at me as I attempt to rake up the once-glorious leafery.
But I?
I have chased autumn into a Missouri mood that lingers like musk on my skin. I have escaped to turning-leaves on proud trees and the deep intensity of autumn colors that hold both the memory of exuberant youth with its’ fresh, green-spring growth, and the exploding red-to-the-core ripeness of the late summer tomato, now seasoned to a complex beauty, indisputably richer and wiser for the aging. The blazing urgency of the season, so much to experience before it all passes into winter, is salty on my tongue. I inhale the cinnamon-scented air, and taste the pungent, spicy and intangible gift of the equinox while the crickets sing that haunting song I have always loved.
Burnt sienna and ochre rustle restlessly as autumn falls and the cool night air sprinkles wet diamonds onto my keyboard and into my mouth filling my lungs with cool, brisk air and enduring toasted warmth at once. Haley’s Comet spilled burning meteor fragments in the wee hours, punctuating the night sky with light, a spectacle for late-night lovers young and old.
What is it about fall? Not just nostalgia, so much sweeter. Faded, yet more glorious. Softer, yet stronger. The taste? Lingering, commemorative, a celebration of all that has ever been with a watchful eye for all to come. Delicious.
I always hate to see summer end, yet the autumn is my life’s palette, the colors of my heart. Even the heading at the top of this page gives ode to the falling leaf…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: Grab the season with gusto, hold it close until the last leaf flies away.
pictured: a google image of Missouri and what I am surrounded by
My mom and I were drinking coffee on the deck this morning and enjoying the rustling leaves in their fall coat-of-many-colors. Autumn is romantic. This is from my mama’s heart and mind:
“The butterflies are taking one last dance across the meadow.
