Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Harrowing Halloween

Well, not wanting to be totally ignorant of what i have been critiquing i decided to join a few of the others and take a look at the revelry down on Franklin Street. Anyways we had just finished having Bible Study at my hall lounge which is right on Franklin so it was no problem to go down there...

Already, during the Bible study itself, Jim, one of the IV staff was talking about some of his own reservations about the holiday which made a lot of sense to me and helped to put things in a better perspective from a Christian point of view. Then, when i saw for myself how things were like on Franklin a lot of my existing preconceived negative notions of what the holiday is all about were basically confirmed when i saw them upfront. Maybe people might attribute it to an Asian and/or Christian point of view, but whatever it is i was disturbed to say the least - a certain disquiet that is still with me even now - a couple of hours later. Hard to put this in words, but basically i just felt that there was just nothing of real purpose going on at all - i guess that for me as a Christian why i'd not want to get involved, apart from all that i've mentioned so far, is that there's no way in which God is glorified in the whole process by anyone participating in it - yeah it may be pure harmless fun to some if one is discerning enough in the activities that one chooses to engage oneself in (and after all, what's the harm in a little participation in a bona fide American institution?), and i totally respect that view, but yeah (and this is strictly my personal opinion here) this time could otherwise be spent in a way that does bring glory to God, for example like the "trick or feed" canned food drive that the IV social justice team helped to organize and that i now wish i'd gone for, or other stuff like that...

Yeah anyways, i suppose that one gets a somewhat prudish impression of me from reading this, but definitely better appearing to be a total prude than doing stuff that i'm not comfortable with in terms of my own walk with God... One thing that i hope that people don't perceive is a self-righteous air about me cos i guess that i may have rubbed some people the wrong way in my unease and discomfort - what i've been struggling with is how to let my own views regarding the holiday known to people if they're interested in it in a way that does not offend or attack...

Yeah well anyways, in other news while i was clearing some risers off the stage after choir rehearsal today one of them that was leaning against the wall came crashing down on me - landing with a bang on my left shoulder - it wasn't really painful or anything, though it took like another half-minute before someone came to my rescue and got that burden off my shoulder - but well it could've been worse - had i been a foot or so more to the left the riser would've crashed right on my head... Anyways, now the area's pretty red though also relatively painless, and the constant compulsive pressing down of my fingers onto the area has led me to conclude that there's not a fracture anywhere, but i guess that the litmus test will be how painful the thingy is tomorrow...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

if its still red, well, your litmus tell would show it is an alkali! viola!

chilipino said...

that would have been a very successful lame joke if not for the fact that litmus paper turns blue if it's an alkali, and remains red if it's an acid =p (hooray for my O level C5 Chemistry!)