Finding a 'bootiful' identity: 10-31-14
October 31, 2014
Here we are at a holiday -- with faith roots -- that I am not crazy about but that seems to be growing more popular each year.
Halloween teaches kids extortion. Isn't that the point of it?
Well, maybe it also is an opportunity to think about who we really are. If we dress up like Batman or a cowboy or a ghost, are we imagining that somewhere deep inside us we can find the characteristics of those, well, characters?
I ran across this fun little piece about Halloween and identity crises that raises just that question in a playful way.
And yet it seems to me that we need opportunities to identify ourselves. Who and whose are we? Asked in the context of faith, that question is: Who and Whose are we?
At the end of the piece to which I've linked you, which is a conversation between a guy named Sam and his wife Sylvia, the wife says: "You're supposed to lose your identity, Sam, it's Halloween."
Not so much, Sylvia. I think maybe Halloween is an opportunity to find our identity. And to promise ourselves that we'll be more careful in the future and not lose it so often.
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EMBRACING THE BIG BANG
While I was out of town in recent days, many of you saw the news about Pope Francis and his comfort with the Big Bang and science theories. But I didn't want anyone to miss the story. So have a look. How nice it is to have a major religious leader who is not petrified of modernity.
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P.S.: My latest National Catholic Reporter column now is online here.