Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

Archives for October 2011

Skipping Halloween

I just don’t know what to do with Halloween.

As a kid, and a teenager, it was a fun time to dress up, visit the neighbors and take in all the candy we could eat while trick-or-treating. It was social and mostly innocent and hey, everybody did it, didn’t they?

Now I have kids. And they like to dress up. And they like chocolate and candy and doing what their friends do. And I like those things, too, for the most part.

But there’s this battle inside me. And I can’t ignore it.

Soon, I will have to choose.

My kids did not go trick-or-treating tonight. (They’re 3 1/2 and 2, so they’ll get over it.)

I have many reasons why they didn’t.

Selfish reasons, such as:

    • I’m tired and still getting back in the swing of things after being away all weekend.
    • There’s snow on the ground. Snow. In October.
    • My husband had class that started at 6:30. Trick-or-treating started at 6. Not a fan of walking through the neighborhood after dark by myself with two little ones.
    • I have enough trouble staying away from the sweets when they aren’t in the house. A bucket-load of chocolate would do in my weight-loss goals for sure.

And not so selfish ones.

Like what this writer, whom I respect and admire, experienced on Halloween one year and how she overcame it. I don’t want to live my life in fear, but I don’t want to celebrate fear or participate in it, either.

Or this bit of information about who suffers so I — and my kids — can enjoy chocolate anytime we want. Sickening. And thought-provoking. Once I know something, it’s hard to go back to the way life was before. Can I enjoy a piece of chocolate if I think about the hands that picked the beans?

Then, there’s the pressure, as a Christian, to shun Halloween because of the evil associated with it. Or the pressure to “redeem” it by giving kids positive, non-scary influences on Halloween. (Confession: I’ve handed out Bible verses with candy in previous years, mostly to justify participating in Halloween at all.)

One of my clearest memories of Halloween as a child was the time my brother, my best friend (a guy) and I went to a house with no outside lights on. I know, biggest  Halloween faux pas and definitely not on any safety list for Halloween. But the people who lived there were my grandparents’ age. I’d just met them — through my grandparents, maybe — and they lived sort of in our neighborhood. It was a whim. A whim I’d later regret. But we walked up to the door, rang the bell and received a kind-but-stern lecture on not ringing people’s doorbells on Halloween if their outside light wasn’t on and oh-by-the-way we don’t celebrate Halloween. I was horrified. Probably more than I would have been if they’d come to the door wearing grim reaper costumes or monster masks.

I don’t want to be those people. I don’t want to suck the life or joy out of anything.

What I do want is to be responsible. As a parent. As a citizen. As a Christian.

My son’s high fever, and subsequent ear infection diagnosis, made the decision not to trick-or-treat, easier tonight. I was relieved, really, that I had a legitimate excuse for not taking them out. In many ways, I’m a coward. I lack conviction. I want to care so deeply and passionately about things that people, even if they don’t agree with my decisions, can understand why I make the decisions I make.

I don’t want to be seen as a taker. As in, I’m taking fun out of my kids’ lives. On short notice, I tried to make up for that by making a special dinner — pumpkin soup with shrimp — and buying candy corn and Turkey Hill ice cream, which had chocolate in it. (Am I a hypocrite or what?) We watched a couple of Halloween kids’ shows on Netflix, which only prompted my daughter to ask when trick-or-treat is.

Sigh.

For now, I hope, this discussion and decision-making process is over. I have a year to gather information and make decisions and try some fair trade chocolate, if I can fit it into our food budget.

There’s a part of me that wants to get this “right.” But sometimes I don’t even know what “right” is. Is it “right” to be a Republican? Or a Democrat? Is it “right” to read Harry Potter novels or the Twilight series or The Hunger Games? Is it “right” to dismiss them as trash? Those are just a few of the other issues I wrestle with that are similar to the Halloween one for me.

“Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone.” (Luke 11:42)

Reading these words of Jesus makes me wonder: Can I do what’s “right” and still be doing wrong?

Maybe I’m overthinking. I’ve been known to do that before. Maybe Halloween is no big deal. I mean, after all, the chocolate companies aren’t going to miss my kids’ absence in the trick-or-treating tradition. Nor will they miss my chocolate-buying if I change my habits. And are my kids going to hate me if I tell them they need to stay home when all their friends go trick-or-treating?

Parenting is hard. Parenting with conviction is harder.

I could go on, but I feel like I’d be creating more confusion and less progress toward an answer.

What are your thoughts? On Halloween, on decision-making, on convictions, on right and wrong?

Talk to me. I’m all ears.

A one-way ticket to the discomfort zone

Do you ever wish you could unknow what you know? Or erase something you’ve learned?

Sometimes, I think the ol’ “ignorance is bliss” adage might be a good way to live.

Then I read something like this:

“People tended to believe what made them the most comfortable and prevented them from being nudged from their comfort zone.”

Kathi Macias wrote that line in her latest novel, which tackles the little-talked-about, uncomfortable subject of human trafficking. Modern-day slavery. It’s a topic the Church is shining more light on, but it’s still underpublicized. Taboo, even, in some circles.

Macias spotlights the issue with Deliver Me From Evil, the first in her new Freedom series. To say that this book is hard to read doesn’t fully describe the range of emotions I felt as I read. In it are scenes on which I didn’t want to dwell but couldn’t forget, decisions I wouldn’t want to make but hope would be right. And as is typical of Macias’ books, I’m left challenged and inspired to make a difference. How, is the question I have yet to answer.

Check out the book trailer below for a glimpse of the series. And read on for an interview with Macias. If you’re interested in other books Macias has written, check out my past reviews of People of the Book, which shines a light on Christian persecution in Muslim countries, and A Christmas Journey Home, which focuses on illegal immigration.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fy_37Tf54dc]

How did you come up with the idea for Deliver Me From Evil and the Freedom series?

It actually came out of a phone conversation with Andrea Mullins, the publisher at New Hope. We were discussing the Extreme Devotion series (about the persecuted Church), which I was still working on at the time, and we began to consider topics for a second series. Andrea was the one who suggested human trafficking, and it really struck a chord with me. The more I researched it and worked on the proposal, the more excited I became about joining forces with others working to abolish modern-day slavery, which is exactly what human trafficking is.

What was your favorite scene to write in Deliver Me From Evil?

This book/series has been the most difficult I’ve ever written, simply because the subject matter is so dark and heavy. More than once I had to walk away and clear my thoughts before moving on from one scene to another. But interspersed between the heartache and tragedy are several lighter scenes (written and incorporated into the book out of necessity), dealing with a pastor’s family and their Bible college-bound son who inadvertently discovers the human trafficking ring and becomes involved in the heroic and dramatic rescue attempt. Any scenes revolving around the absolutely functional and loving life of the Flannery family are my favorites.

What was the most difficult scene, and why?

There were many difficult scenes in this book due to the subject matter, but the hardest had to be when the main character, 18-year-old Mara, realizes that one of the younger girls is being tortured and killed in an effort to extract information and punish her. Though the actual violence is done offstage, Mara experiences each blow and muffled scream, as does the reader.

Did you always know you wanted to be a writer? If not, how did you catch the writing bug?

Oh yes, I never wanted to be anything else. From the time I discovered the power and allure of words, I was hooked! I was an avid reader before I started kindergarten. A short story I wrote in the third grade was turned into a play for the entire PTA, and I won all sorts of awards for poetry in high school. I even told my then boyfriend (now husband) Al when we were in our early teens that I was going to be a writer one day.

How do you go about writing your fiction books? Which comes first for you, plot, characters, and/or theme?

I usually get what I call “a niggling in my soul,” which eventually emerges into the very basic theme of the book. I hate outlining and writing proposals because I do NOT develop plots or even characters ahead of time. I start with a couple of main characters, a starting and ending point for my story, and just let the rest unfold as I go. I know. We’re not supposed to do it that way, but it works for me, and I so enjoy the surprises as the story develops and my characters take over. So much fun! So long as they don’t try to lead me away from my pre-determined ending. Then I have to reign them back in a bit.

How do you get your ideas for your books?

I have ideas coming out of my ears! I am a seriously addictive idea person. You
want ideas? You can have my overflow! My challenge is to figure out which ones are worth pursuing. Not every cute or fun or even meaningful idea that pops into our head is meant to be a book. I pray, think, study, bounce them off people, etc., before committing to moving ahead with one of them. For the most part, however, nearly all my book ideas are, to one degree or another, born out of some moral or social issue that I care about.

How can we find out more about you, The Freedom Series, and other books you are writing?

Please visit my website at KathiMacias.com.

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I was given a complimentary copy of this book from the author in exchange for posting the author’s interview on my blog. This blog tour is managed by Christian Speakers Services (ChristianSpeakersServices.com).