The church is killing the community. Sounds wrong, doesn’t
it? We’ve been told that the
church is all about community.
Somehow, though, it has replaced the real community with a faux
community conjured up from a homogeneous group brought together in a vast
cinderblock bunker with a steeple on top and a 20-acre parking lot.
My daughter is going trick-or-treating tonight with a
friend. Sounds easy. Took a lot of work to get to that point. We live in an area with poor public
schools. Most everyone goes to
private school. My daughter knows
almost no children in her neighborhood.
I guess you can say that private schools are killing the community, but
that is for another post. So back
in early September, I set up a trick-or-treating date with my daughter’s best
friend who lives 40 minutes away.
I communicated back and forth with the mom about Halloween plans and the
sleepover. All seemed well. Until Monday, when I was informed that
the girl couldn’t come because she had to volunteer at the “Fall Festival” at
her church.
Yep. Fall
Festival. Not Halloween. Not trick-or-treating. Why would anyone want their kids
roaming their neighborhoods in costumes?
Seeing their neighbors.
Carving scary jack o’lanterns. The church feels a need to put an end to
that. Perhaps Satan has been found
residing in Smarties and mini Twix bars.
And if the “Fall Festival” replacement is annoying, could it
be worse than Trunk-or-Treat?
Skittish parents drive into their church parking lot and back their cars
into a circular formation.
They fill their trunks with candy, pop the door open and the kids,
unaware there is a real world out there, circulate among the trunks and fill
their bags with candy. Trunks are
not for kids and candy. They are for
luggage. Bald tires. Low-level mobsters bound for the East
River. Sigh.
In a few hours, my daughter and another friend will roam the
streets. They will get to see
neighbors they know and meet new ones.
My daughter will enlarge her community each time she rings a doorbell
and says “trick or treat.” I will
go with them on the more unfamiliar streets and I, too, will enlarge my
community. And I get to look into
other people’s houses. I love
that!
I’m so looking forward to seeing the little, happy
kids. And the bigger happy kids. Hopefully not the really, really big
kids, but I guess that’s ok as long as they are polite. I’ve heard that we should expect around
150 kids. Everyone will be out in
this neighborhood – the children of the elite that live in $10,000,000 houses,
college students, and the kids that live in public housing 3 blocks away. My community will grow. And it will only cost me 300 pieces of
chocolate. And I can leave my car
parked in the drive.
Come on and ring my doorbell. Ain’t nobody going to hell.
