The first snowman of the year. He's a little bit snow and a little bit dirt. Tirz, Ad and Si made him on top of freshly plowed soil by the sled hill. (Emily is missing from the picture she was with Rick.)

Tirzah's snowman.

This according to *the boy* is his warrior snowman. His "hands" are raised in the air in victory.

And here is the other warrior snowman. He is obviously on the losing side of the fight complete with "blood" from his wounds.

Concerning Halloween

This is from the October edition of Epistula sent out by Veritas Press. It is different from what I have read or heard most about Halloween. What do you think? Anyone?

It has become routine in October for some Christian schools to send out letters warning parents about the evils of Halloween, and it has become equally routine for me to be asked questions about this matter.

"Halloween" is simply a contraction for All Hallows' Eve. The word "hallow" means "saint," in that "hallow" is just an alternative form of the word "holy" ("hallowed be Thy name"). All Saints' Day is November 1. It is the celebration of the victory of the saints in union with Christ. The observance of various celebrations of All Saints arose in the late 300s, and these were united and fixed on November 1 in the late 700s. The origin of All Saints Day and of All Saints Eve in Mediterranean Christianity had nothing to do with Celtic Druidism or the Church's fight against Druidism (assuming there ever even was any such thing as Druidism, which is actually a myth concocted in the 19th century by neo-pagans.)

In the First Covenant, the war between God's people and God's enemies was fought on the human level against Egyptians, Assyrians, etc. With the coming of the New Covenant, however, we are told that our primary battle is against principalities and powers, against fallen angels who bind the hearts and minds of men in ignorance and fear. We are assured that through faith, prayer, and obedience, the saints will be victorious in our battle against these demonic forces. The Spirit assures us: "The God of peace will crush Satan under your feet shortly" ( Romans 16:20).

The Festival of All Saints reminds us that though Jesus has finished His work, we have not finished ours. He has struck the decisive blow, but we have the privilege of working in the mopping up operation. Thus, century by century the Christian faith has rolled back the demonic realm of ignorance, fear, and superstition. Though things look bad in the Western world today, this work continues to make progress in Asia and Africa and Latin America.

The Biblical day begins in the preceding evening, and thus in the Church calendar, the eve of a day is the actual beginning of the festive day. Christmas Eve is most familiar to us, but there is also the Vigil of Holy Saturday that precedes Easter Morn. Similarly, All Saints' Eve precedes All Saints' Day.

The concept, as dramatized in Christian custom, is quite simple: On October 31, the demonic realm tries one last time to achieve victory, but is banished by the joy of the Kingdom.

What is the means by which the demonic realm is vanquished? In a word: mockery. Satan's great sin (and our great sin) is pride. Thus, to drive Satan from us we ridicule him. This is why the custom arose of portraying Satan in a ridiculous red suit with horns and a tail. Nobody thinks the devil really looks like this; the Bible teaches that he is the fallen Arch-Cherub. Rather, the idea is to ridicule him because he has lost the battle with Jesus and he no longer has power over us.

(The tradition of mocking Satan and defeating him through joy and laughter plays a large role in Ray Bradbury's classic novel, Something Wicked This Way Comes, which is a Halloween novel.)

The gargoyles that were placed on the churches of old had the same meaning. They symbolized the Church ridiculing the enemy. They stick out their tongues and make faces at those who would assault the Church. Gargoyles are not demonic; they are believers ridiculing the defeated demonic army.

Thus, the defeat of evil and of demonic powers is associated with Halloween. For this reason, Martin Luther posted his 95 challenges to the wicked practices of the Church to the bulletin board on the door of the Wittenberg chapel on Halloween. He picked his day with care, and ever since Halloween has also been Reformation Day.

Similarly, on All Hallows' Eve (Hallow-Even – Hallow-E'en – Halloween), the custom arose of mocking the demonic realm by dressing children in costumes. Because the power of Satan has been broken once and for all, our children can mock him by dressing up like ghosts, goblins, and witches. The fact that we can dress our children this way shows our supreme confidence in the utter defeat of Satan by Jesus Christ—we have NO FEAR!

I don't have the resources to check the historical origins of all Halloween customs, and doubtless they have varied from time to time and from Christian land to Christian land. "Trick or treat" doubtless originated simply enough: something fun for kids to do. Like anything else, this custom can be perverted, and there have been times when "tricking" involved really mean actions by teenagers and was banned from some localities.

We can hardly object, however, to children collecting candy from friends and neighbors. This might not mean much to us today, because we are so prosperous that we have candy whenever we want, but in earlier generations people were not so well off, and obtaining some candy or other treats was something special. There is no reason to pour cold water on an innocent custom like this.

Similarly, the jack-o'-lantern's origins are unknown. Hollowing out a gourd or some other vegetable, carving a face, and putting a lamp inside of it is something that no doubt has occurred quite independently to tens of thousands of ordinary people in hundreds of cultures worldwide over the centuries. Since people lit their homes with candles, decorating the candles and the candle-holders was a routine part of life designed to make the home pretty or interesting. Potatoes, turnips, beets, and any number of other items were used.

Wynn Parks writes of an incident he observed: "An English friend had managed to remove the skin of a tangerine in two intact halves. After carving eyes and nose in one hemisphere and a mouth in the other, he poured cooking oil over the pith sticking up in the lower half and lit the readymade wick. With its upper half on, the tangerine skin formed a miniature jack-o'-lantern. But my friend seemed puzzled that I should call it by that name. `What would I call it? Why a "tangerine head," I suppose.'" (Parks, "The Head of the Dead," The World & I, November 1994, p. 270.)

In the New World, people soon learned that pumpkins were admirably suited for this purpose. The jack-o'-lantern is nothing but a decoration; and the leftover pumpkin can be scraped again, roasted, and turned into pies and muffins.

In some cultures, what we call a jack-o'-lantern represented the face of a dead person, whose soul continued to have a presence in the fruit or vegetable used. But this has no particular relevance to Halloween customs. Did your mother tell you, while she carved the pumpkin, that this represented the head of a dead person and with his soul trapped inside? Of course not. Symbols and decorations, like words, mean different things in different cultures, in different languages, and in different periods of history. The only relevant question is what does it mean now, and nowadays it is only a decoration.

And even if some earlier generations did associate the jack-o'-lantern with a soul in a head, so what? They did not take it seriously. It was just part of the joking mockery of heathendom by Christian people.

This is a good place to note that many articles in books, magazines, and encyclopedias are written by secular humanists or even the pop-pagans of the so-called "New Age" movement. (An example is the article by Wynn Parks cited above.) These people actively suppress the Christian associations of historic customs, and try to magnify the pagan associations. They do this to try and make paganism acceptable and to downplay Christianity. Thus, Halloween, Christmas, Easter, etc., are said to have pagan origins. Not true.

Oddly, some fundamentalists have been influenced by these slanted views of history. These fundamentalists do not accept the humanist and pagan rewriting of Western history, American history, and science, but sometimes they do accept the humanist and pagan rewriting of the origins of Halloween and Christmas, the Christmas tree, etc. We can hope that in time these brethren will reexamine these matters as well. We ought not to let the pagans do our thinking for us.

Nowadays, children often dress up as superheroes, and the original Christian meaning of Halloween has been absorbed into popular culture. Also, with the present fad of "designer paganism" in the so-called New Age movement, some Christians are uneasy with dressing their children as spooks. So be it. But we should not forget that originally Halloween was a Christian custom, and there is no solid reason why Christians cannot enjoy it as such even today.

"He who sits in the heavens laughs; Yahweh ridicules them" says Psalm 2. Let us join in His holy laughter, and mock the enemies of Christ on October 31.

James B. Jordan

Mr. Jordan writes several newsletters including Biblical Horizons, Biblical Chronology, Open Book and Rite Reasons. The above article appeared in the August, 1996 issue of the Open Book Newsletter. For more information on Biblical Horizons please visit www.biblicalhorizons.com.

This was reprinted with out permission I hope he doesn't get mad.

Pumpkin contest! Addey won 3rd place in the 6 to 12 category. It's second from the right with the big happy smile.

A 1st place winner! Tirzah won 1st place in the pumpkin contest put on by the local newspaper in town.

Who needs snow! Grab your sled and slide down the nearest hill of dying grass.

Ad on her 7th birthday, 2005

Update on Ad

Ad is doing great. The stitches came out a couple of weeks ago and the little scar by her eye is healing up nicely. Last Tuesday we took her in for her second CAT scan. Everything looked great, well, except for a hunk of metal stuck up in the nasal passage. Upon the advice of the Doctor we are leaving it in for the time being. The body has probably started to seal it off with a fibrous tissue. Because of the way it is situated there doesn’t seem to be too much chance of it migrating. The doctor believes it may cause more harm and trauma to take it out at this point. So unless she develops allergies or a plethora of sinus infections we are leaving it in. We do have another CAT scan scheduled in three months just to check everything.

Due to some questions I should mention that piece of casing is in her nasal passage behind the nose, not in her nostril or any wear you can see it. She plays and acts her normal little self.

If you click on her picture you can see the small scar below her left eye.

The consequence of sin

Sometimes after you have confessed your sin and have been forgiven you are left with the consequences.
There seemed to be more problems than was anticipated at first. Spy wear, ad wear, viruses, deleted programs (oops!) I seemed to have it all. It was cleaned up. Set straight. Sent home. However, when I went home I was unable to get on line.
After many phone calls to our service provider and our local computer repair shop Terry came through for me today. The twenty-five minutes he worked on it, with me standing over his shoulder, seemed to fix the problem. He used his magic disc. He even carried the CPU to the car for me. Wow, what a guy! Thanks Terry!!!


If you’re a technical person it had something to do with the "win-soc" do-hicky.

I told this to Em and she asked if it was some thing like the thing she made at VBS last year that hangs outside and flaps in the wind. "Uhhhhhh, quite possibly," I replied.

I must confess my sin.
I may have killed my computer.
This is not the first time.
I repent.
There is nothing else I can do. Sigh.
I have taken it to the miracle worker in our town.
It is in his hands to bring it back to life.
Until then I am left alone with only my thoughts and nowhere to type them. Sigh.
I am at the neighbor's house now and have been given limited access to the computer.
Sigh.
My sin is before all.
Now you know. Have mercy.

An Unwanted Visitor!! We found this gal as she was spinning down from the kitchen ceiling. Yes, she's a Black Widow!! 

Our sweet little Addey

For those that don't know, my sweet little Addey is doing fine after a freak accident Monday evening.

It was about five in the evening when we started our first fire of the season outside in our fire pit. The kids and I were all standing around (except T who was in the house) enjoying the warmth, as the fire started really heating up there was a very loud sudden pop. Everyone jumped this way and that. As I jumped back I caught sight of what looked like a piece of brass casing from a 22 cal. bullet. Before I could look further, from behind me I heard Addey yell a panicked, "Mommy!" As I turned around I was faced with see my sweet little girl with blood all over her eye and face. Em, who was next to me and saw the same sight, ran to the house screaming. Poor Em, I wish she didn’t have to that. I quickly pulled Ad to my chest to keep anyone else from seeing her and to stop the blood. All I could do while I whisked her to the house was to pray, very loud scattered prayers and push away the fear of her losing her eye. As I entered the house I barked out for someone to call our very close friend and neighbor, Duane, who just happens to be a local Depute Sheriff. Tirz held herself together and made the called. He came right over with his wife, Wendy, following in their second car. As we walked to the car I yelled back for Tirz to call Dad and let him know. I jumped in the car with Ad on my lap holding a towel to her face. Staying with the other children, Wendy made a call for an ambulance to meet us en route on the main road; informing them her husband was driving. About five minutes into our ride Duane turned to me and asked if the bleeding was beginning to let up. I had not yet been able to bring myself to look under that towel to see how much damage had been done. I took a deep breath and gently pulled the towel away. I was immediately relieved to see her eye was totally intact. I let out a deep sign and many prayers of thanks to the Lord.

After about twenty minutes of driving one of Duane's buddies from the Sheriff office went whizzing by. He began turning around to meet us as we watched in dismay as the ambulance turn off the main road, driving away from us. Duane looked at me and said, "We're not waiting for them." and we continued driving. The Sheriff’s car caught up with us and escorted us to the hospital.

At the hospital Addey was so brave. She did everything the nurses and doctors asked of her. With the initial pain and shock of the event over she was relatively comfortable and amazingly not in that much pain. Rick arrived about 10 minutes after we did. Our friend and another neighbor Todd Panabaker came to show his support too. My Aunt and Uncle, who we forgot to call, arrived about a half an hour later. They preformed a CAT Scan and found a "foreign object" mostly in her nasal passage with tip of it in the lower eye area. But not the eye it’s self. This piece of shrapnel (I hate to even use that term in conjunction with my six-year-old daughter) missed the eye muscles, a couple of arteries, and her tier duct. Basically anything major. The ER doctors needed to call in the specialist to know what to do with piece of metal in my daughter nose. However, the Specialists are 2 hours away from us. It was decided to leave it in until the next day. At that point my uncle made the statement of the evening or at least the one that got Ad to smile and laugh a little. “Well Addey,” he said, “ now you can tell everyone you have a metal booger in your nose.” Thanks Uncle Dick. They cleaned the area at the point of entry (another word I never expected to use). At first the doctor wasn’t going to do anything, no stitches not even a bandage to keep things clean. But after cleaning the area well he decided to put two “loose“ stitches in. We were sent home with all the info we needed to go into the “big city” and hear what the Specialists hand to say.

On Tuesday we saw an Ophthalmologist who confirmed that her eyes are working perfectly. Thank You Lord. He also took out the “loose” stitches and put in nice little neat stitches. On Wednesday we saw an ENT (the ear, nose, throat guy). His advice was to put Ad on antibiotics for a month and scheduled another CAT Scan in about that same time. With most of the swelling and inflammation reduced in a month time he thinks it would be a better time to decide what to do, to take it out or leave it in. Yes I said, “Leave it in.” He thinks it might cause more damage to try and take it out. But all those decision will be made in a month. Right now Rick and I and the other kids are just thankful to have Addey here and looking at us with both eyes. Thank you for all your prayers. Through all of this I have been over whelmed with the Lord’s Great Mercy. I have felt the love of God hold us and support us. I thank Him and Praise him. Though we don’t know why this had to happen. We do know the Lord has spared little Ad and us from so much. Thank you Lord!

So, do fruit flies grow up to be one of those big flies?

Why is it when you finally find the flyswatter all the flies disappear?

Summer has been very busy and not left much time for posting. So many activities. So many projects. So many places to go! But summer is ending and school is starting next week for us. This year hold a few changes for us. We have signed up with "Parent Partnership" (sometimes called Home Link). It means we have registered our children in a near by school district. I still homeschool the kids but big daddy government now gets to look over my shoulder. I meet with a certified teach twice a month to go over how we are doing. The benefit to me is they will reimburse the cost our curriculum and other school need that are covered in this program. The school district is small and many of the people involved are Christians. This will allow us to do some things we have not had the money for. It will also allow us to get the books I have wanted and our library does not have. I'll just need to cover the cost of the bookshelves.

July 2005