From Hell's Heart of the New West, I Stab At Thee

I'll preface this up front by stating Halloween and Days of the Dead is/are my favorite social celebration/s of the year. It's a momentary departure from how one is told one *should* behave that not only permits but encourages all ages to celebrate colour, imagination, magic, What-if, the fantastic, the unknown, the untouchable, pageantry, debauchery, overdose of sugarbombs liquid and solid, heros, villains, ancestors, and anything else you can cram into it.

The fiestas are the breath between Harvest's closing and hopefully fat moments, and the shadows veiling the next Harvest, reminding us the only true certainty in the future is Death and if we don't laugh about it, we'll cry.

Having so much fun contemplating altered states and mortality apparently drives 'serious' religionists bats. And when they insist on being serious in Alberta, I get to hear about it as if it's news. Welcome to Jeesusween . Not as fun as you'd think.

Aside from the 'what marketing genius thought up the name so the rest of us can point and laugh', it's sadly apparent that the pastor doesn't seem to understand the Christian origin of Halloween. Note, I didn't say origin of Samhain, I said Halloween, or All Hallows Evening, the un-fun night before the amazingly un-fun All Saints/Hallows Day. No, not Harry Potter's Deathly Hallows. That would be *fun*. Yet another church day invented by the Catholics to usurp the pre-Christian Roman Empire rituals of the 'Celtic' calendar, in this case, their New Year.

You'd think Christians would at least know their own history but perhaps that far back is too papal. All I really know is, when the Christian Hellhouses started up in righteous moral opposition to the demonic influences of 'secular' Halloween, it was easy to see the teenagers allowed to take part were diving into the grislier parts of their horror show with nearly secular glee. They truly found their inner Grand Guignol in depicting the sins and punishments of Hell. Medieval as H..all get out.

Trust Alberta to come up with a version that will suck even that much life out of the experience for kids and everyone around them. This October 31st, I could find adults using kids as their stalking horses, planting them on doorsteps with some version of Christian bibles and 'sharing the Word'.

From "Benefits" at the darling website...

"The children coming out to give the bibles will do it with excitement. They will not feel deprived as they will be coming out like other kids to give the Word to people. They will definitely be received by families as it is just natural not to turn a child down. The children will understand from an early age that it is fun to give the Word."

And if that isn't enough, just think of the fun on the faces of the children receiving bibles and other heartwarming Christian paraphenalia in their treat bags when visiting a Jesusweenie household. I mean, really? Not even a chocolate Jesus?

Fun. I do not think this word means what you think it means. Also, too, Jesusweenies? Stating "The dictionary meaning of Ween is to expect, believe or think"...

a/doesn't make it so no matter how much you want to retroactively try to make it sound like you meant it that way and scavenging a dictionary for justification is just *low*. If you came clean and stopped doubling down, you wouldn't have to resort to JesusWin as the hep backup name.

b/isn't where Ween comes from in relation to Halloween, hence apparently requiring you to spout what Word Detective encounters all too often in etymology; 'common sense' interpretation of origin. How's that working out for you around evolution again? I mean, why not just say Jesus'een? or better yet and this is after three seconds contemplation on my atheist part, Nazar'een...wait...why am I helping you? You're accomplishing all I can ask of a Christian 'outreach'.

Happy Halloween, Pastor Paul.