BRING DOWN THE BIG UNS. NO MIS-SPELLING THERE.
I was reading USA Today recently because it was the only daily I found at my workplace that day. This particular edition had a letter from one Chris Sage of Tom’s River in New Jersey. He was clearly upset with the recent concerted movement by many churches to discourage, if not, ban Halloween.
He found pamphlets on his car windscreen, that were effectively telling him that his children of eleven and nine ‘will rot in the bowels of hell if they dress up like characters from the Pirates of the Caribbean and go house-to-house with friends – while supervised – just to get some candy, all while socializing and participating in a friendly neighborhood tradition.’
I could empathize with Mr. Sage.
Merely days earlier, I had a rather robust discussion with my father on the very same topic, Halloween. My parents have become very staunch and committed Christians since they were baptized two years ago. I am happy, almost envious that they have such an intense spirituality, after all these years of not aligning themselves to any faith. They have been soft-selling the same path to me. But that’s another story.
My Pa made a remark about finding it difficult to handle kids that may turn up at his gate with a ‘trick or treat’. I was taken aback on two counts: 1) That Malaysian kids are already into Halloween, and 2) That Pa is taken in with the anti-Halloween effort. The former I dealt with easily, the media being what it is today has made virtually everything American known and mimicked the world over. The latter, however, begged clarification.
I am of the opinion that dressing up fancy to partake in a social activity is basically what Halloween is about. It has nothing to do with one’s faith. If anything, one’s faith is the anchor with which one does not overstep the boundary between ‘activity’ and ‘obsession’. Halloween's origins, after all, are not demonic but for avoidance of such. Pa, of course, was driven by the church. Such activities are just un-Christian, he said. Soon, we were debating on how Christian were Christmas, Chinese New Year, New Year’s Day and so forth. I insisted that he was not giving me his opinion from his own conscience and merely repeating doctrines propagated by the church. My Mom probably sensed the rising temperature from the kitchen because she abruptly sent the old man out on an errand. We moved on to other topics after that, with no hard feelings. I’m thankful for Pa is open for discussions without me feeling unfilial or kurang ajar. I love and respect him for that. That, too, is another story.
What disturbs me is the ease and regularity with which all and sundry are declared un-Christian, un-Islamic or un-democratic. Un- Whatever! We used to have to deal with isms. Today, it’s the BIG UNS. Most of the time, the basis on which such declarations are made is frivolous and debatable. Like the religious expert from a bank in Malaysia who declared it haram (forbidden) for Muslims to wish Hindus a happy Deepavali (or Diwali). His odious email could have dealt inter-faith and inter-racial goodwill a bloody nose. Thankfully, the insipid motion and notion was shot down and clarified by the authorities. I wonder if the poor man is aware of the hurt, insult and misinformation that he instigated. Many other similar summary declarations are hardly ever debated upon and that is very frightening. Just because a decree comes from a holy office or holy men, it has to be obeyed regardless.
More often than not it comes with an air of holier-than-thou condescension. Mr. Sage wrote of the anti-Halloween campaign as ‘an effort led by self-righteous egotistical holy men blinded by their own delusions of grandeur’. It may not be entirely true but the possibilities are horrifying. A bigot who sits in the position can easily spread hatred and fear.
The decisions are still man-made in essence. Indeed, their assumptions are based on the Scriptures and Traditions. I query: Under whose interpretations of the Scriptures, then? There lies a great danger of seeing what we wish to see, to find the means to justify the end. This is why research, discussion and debate are vital. Facts are needed for reasoning. The path to enlightenment is not without questions. There is no faith without doubt. These Big Uns, they are so often borne out of narrowly-learned minds.
Life would be very much simpler if the world were mono-cultural, mono-religion, mono-racial and maybe, mono-sexual. It wouldn’t take long to understand everything there is to know and identify the un-social, un-spiritual or un-cool elements for such a society. Alas! We don’t dwell in such a world.
Judicial Law is fairly common everywhere we go, for crime as we see it affects us all in a generally similar manner across cultures and geography. Murderers and cheats are abhorred everywhere. Cultural, traditional and religious practices are not entirely uniform. Some would appear so alien; it may even go against the very grain of another. Seek first to understand before passing any judgment, on ourselves and not on others. Deepavali is a symbolic celebration of Light’s triumph over Darkness, of Good over Evil. Where’s the wrong and unholy in that?
My brother decides to dress up as Sponge Bob Square Pants to get candies. Even if I see Halloween as a great waste of time, I have no right to sentence him to an eternity in hell. That’s for God to judge. It is not part of our tradition but I owe it to myself to find out what Halloween means to him, although I'm aware of how removed the present-day concept of Halloween is from its origins. He says, it’s only for fun with friends and is neither about the devil nor worship of evil. Having understood, it now seems no more a waste of time than a trip to the beach. With understanding, we will be able to appreciate the intent behind the practices of every culture, tradition and religion. The intent is invariably always good, pure and simple. With knowledge there won’t be fear and suspicion. The Big Uns evidently are rooted in ignorance.
Ignorance and misinterpretation of cultures and religions outside one’s own is still very prevalent. Rituals of a pantheistic Ticuna tribe in deepest Amazon may not be necessary knowledge to one in Petaling Jaya, but a neighbor’s faith and related anathemas surely warrant some understanding. Love thy neighbor, ring a bell? To love, love, love him is to know, know, know him. Alright, that may be stretching it a bit but we all do loathe committing a faux pas and understanding your friends and neighbors will prevent red faces of embarrassment and possibly, of rage.
Is it a sin to learn about another religion? Will learning about Buddha’s teachings convert a Muslim into a Buddhist? Would studying the Holy Quran apostates a Christian? We all learned mathematics, are we then mathematicians? What matters is we know numbers and are thus able to do sums decently for day to day usage. If you are comfortable and confident with yourself being a mathematician, learning history won’t make you a historian overnight. As the anguished parent from Tom’s River charged, ‘If the church is doing its job correctly, it’d have the confidence in the spirituality of its congregation to know that Halloween is just a fun day for kids.’ This statement hits at the very heart of every faith, belief and individual in this plural world of ours. We need to sort things out from within, right from the roots up so there won’t be a need to nip buds all the time, more so buds from another tree. Or go off tangent and come up with an assortment of Uns. Once unleashed, they may corrupt the tenets of the very religion or faith they purport to defend. The pure and holy made murky. More so in the eyes of people of other beliefs.
Only objective minds can readily separate the faith from the practitioners. This is why knowledge and discourse are indispensable, especially in matters of faith and tradition.
Ignorance won’t be such a problem had we COMPASSION for one another. But that is yet another story and will be discussed next.
God Willing. God Bless.
