Saints, Souls, and Saturday

Every year, I usually approach Halloween with a tiny bit of anxiety. This year is no exception. Most times, I'm racing around town at the last minute looking for vampire teeth, tiaras, and tootsie rolls. I worry if we have enough candy or if I bought too much. I'm usually trying to stuff a hotdog down every one's throat before they race off to collect candy. Most of the time, I'm still sewing bunny tails or painting on mustaches while kids are knocking on the door. But this year, I won't be doing any of that. I've had enough and our family has decided to take our Holy Day back.

As October rolled around, I realized that Halloween this year was on Saturday. Now that's a happy realization in our house, for several reasons. Payday is on Friday. This makes last minute candy buying ideal. Hiding candy is practically impossible with 6 children, 5 of whom can smell the chocolate cooking in Hershey. The only way to keep candy around here is to buy something gross like Circus Peanuts. But I digress. Saturday is always a good day for Halloween because, well it's Saturday. I imagined we could dedicate the whole day to Halloween activities. We could catch the parade in the morning, pick up a pumpkin at ½ price from the farmer's market, carve out a neat jack-o-lantern, order a pizza, get dressed up, take the little one's door to door, come home and separate the good candy from the bad, let the children eat more than 2 pieces of candy, throw the kids in the bath, and still have time to watch a movie. It was ideal. Until our mayor decided Saturday night trick-or-treating wasn't safe for the children.

Yep, you heard that right. In case you are wondering, all dangerous people and tricksters wait until the sun goes down on Saturday to engage in criminal activity. Saturday afternoon, the mayor figured, would hinder teenage trouble makers and potential pedophiles from frightening young children and their parents. Needless to say, parents across our fair town inundated the mayor's office with complaints. After all, in what universe is trick-or-treating at 3 PM any fun? Boca Raton, maybe. So the decision was made, by the powers that be, for Halloween to be moved to Thursday, October 29^th.

Now normally, I don't give a hoot. I dress my kids up and off we go. But this year, it hit me like a ton of bricks. The mayor can't move Halloween. I can't move Halloween. Even the President can't move Halloween. Nobody can tell us when to celebrate it, remember it, or recognize it—it's a religious holiday. Now there, I said it. Halloween is a religious holiday and yet, somewhere along the way, some well-meaning people have forgotten that. Somehow this remarkable, joyous holiday got usurped by secular society. And for what it's worth, we Christians let it happen.

When I was a kid, Halloween was the greatest day ever. It was a different time then. Our parents didn't much care where we went or how long we were gone. They just wanted to sort through our candy when we got home so they could eat our chocolate. Every kid in the neighborhood knew all the best houses to go to. Costumes were no big deal, but everyone had one. I always ended up being a witch with one of those green plastic masks that looked like this. We'd all meet up at one central location and ride our bikes, if we had to, just to get Fizzies and Marathon bars. Trick or treating in those days was serious business. It wasn't for babies; it was for school-aged kids. Grandmas handed out homemade cookies and fudge. Parents went to parties. Teenagers went to baby-sit. It was harmless and it was fun. I grew up and never really thought much about Halloween as anything other than candy and ghost stories. But by the 80s, all that had changed.

I think the madness began with this little gem from 1978. Soon enough, the media started reporting about the "dangers" of Halloween, and the next thing you know, there were monsters lurking everywhere. Parents waited in panic for children to return home. They weren't looking through candy bags for the kids' best pieces of chocolate; they were looking for razor blades in the Sugar Daddies. Yuppie parents threw their kids candy apples in the garbage and begged their radiologist friends to x-ray anything left in the wrappers. Soon babysitters were forced to walk the neighborhoods with their charges and miss the one night of the year they could have their boyfriends over unsupervised. Parents quit going to parties and started hosting them instead. Haunted hayrides turned into The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Halloween morphed from the most fun night on the planet to the most dangerous day in the life of a child. Local churches only did what they thought was best. To fight the evil, they started having Fall Festivals. Kids flocked into church basements in Care Bear costumes so they could play games and eat cookies. Only the teenagers were left to gallivant around the streets, egging cars and rolling houses.

In the two decades (yes, I said 20 years), the general idea of a safe Halloween hasn't changed all that much, but the trick-or-treating stuff definitely has. Trick-or-Treat Night is firmly entrenched in American culture and there are now some general rules. There can be no trick-or-treating on Friday or Sunday nights. Friday night is for high school football. Trick-or-treating on Sunday is sacrilegious. A baby's first Halloween is a social milestone. Candy is so, well, passé. Pre-packaged fruit slices, school supplies, and kid-sized toothpaste are the choices of modern families. Not to be outdone, more and more churches are offering this as an alternative. In spite of these efforts by Christians, Halloween has lost all its real significance and has become one big giant costume contest. Parents spend months looking for the perfect costume that accentuates their infant's/toddler's/preschooler's cuteness. This was a best seller last year. What that has do with Halloween, I've yet to discover. In fact, I can't figure out what trick-or-treating and candy even have to do with Halloween. Somebody has capitalized on OUR Holiday and I think it's high time we take it back. I suppose, though, before Christians can actually take it back, they must realize why we celebrate it in the first place.

The early Christian church sprang from Judaism. As such, Christianity and Judaism share similar texts and beliefs. One of those beliefs is life after death. Well before the life of Jesus, Jewish rabbis were already teaching about the afterlife and the purification of souls. The Biblical book of 2 Maccabees offers a glimpse of the practices and beliefs of the Jewish people at that time. These beliefs remain an important part of Jewish faith. Early Christians, who were Jews of varying sects, brought these ideas of the afterlife with them as the Church developed. The tradition in the early Church included the belief that, for a time, souls went to a place for purification before they entered into eternity with Our Lord. Those Christians who live lives of virtue and charity will go on after death to share in the Beatific Vision—the face of God. The Church, through the ages, has referred to these men and women as Saints. There are plenty that we know by name and others that have died without their names ever being known. The communion of saints, as recited in the Apostle's Creed, refers to these saints in heaven, but also the saints waiting purification in Purgatory and the believers here on earth. With these beliefs as foundation, the early Christians began setting aside days of the year to pray for those, both known and unknown, who had died in martyrdom. As the Church grew in size and spread throughout the Roman Empire, it became clear that their needed to be one day set aside in the Church to recognize and prayer for the saints. In 610, Pope Boniface did just that by proclaiming May 13 as the Feast of All Holy Martyrs. It is unclear why the feast day was moved, but in 835 Pope Gregory IV moved the date to November 1 and proclaimed the day as All Saints Day. Traditionally, Feast Days were often celebrated as vigils, or in the evening. Thus, All Saints Day became commonly known as All Hallows Eve, or Halloween.

Under ordinary circumstances, this is where the story of Halloween would end. But since the Church has always been a mission Church, some things unexpected often happen. The Church in those times had the conversion of the whole known world as her goal. As missionaries moved into the corners of the world, they often faced groups of people who had long established belief systems and rituals. This was exactly the case as the Church began moving into the land of the Celts—not these Celtics, but these Celtics. The Celtic Pagans had many rituals, celebrations, and festivals to recognize their gods. One of the most significant festivals, Samhain, took place around the same time of year. Samhain (pronounced Sah-win) means "summer's end." The Pagans believed that on this day the boundaries between the world of the living and the world of the dead became very thin, thus making it possible for the dead to return. They marked this time of year with bonfires, dancing, and dressing in disguises. This fascination with the dead was firmly entrenched in Celtic culture and it became quite difficult for Christian missionaries to explain the Mysteries of the Church. Rather than risk losing the souls of the Celts, the Church instituted sound doctrine and tradition, but allowed some practice of Pagan customs to ease the adjustment period. As Christianity spread, however, these old ways eventually lost their meaning and these practices died out. What remained, instead, was the knowledge and practice that just souls who believe in the Resurrection need not fear death. Unfortunately, Halloween was doomed, if you will, shortly after the Protestant Reformation.

Martin Luther, as is well known, rejected many of the traditions and some of the Scriptures that the Christian Church held as Truth. One of the ideas he rejected was the idea of Purgatory and prayers for the dead. As a result, the church that grew out of his movement could only recognize the Feast of All Souls as a memorial for those in heaven and those left on earth. Any real significance of the Holiday was lost long before these Christians began to settle in the New World. As a result, most of the early Americans had little understanding of the importance of All Saints Day. How, then, has Halloween returned to the celebration that it is today? There are lots of rumors that the Irish Catholics brought these traditions when they settled in the Northeast. There are also rumors about Satanists and Witches in the first colonies. Most of these stories are unfounded. More than likely the idea of trick-or-treating on Halloween has more to do with poverty than sorcery. In the 1930s, children in larger cities often dressed in disguise around the Thanksgiving Holidays and begged for food. They stood around pastry shops and candy stores, in particular. Probably because many Catholic families in the East were celebrating Masses on Halloween, that night became a particularly easy evening to beg for food. Since most Americans were unfamiliar with the theology behind the celebrations, post WWII America was able to capitalize on the idea. By the 1950s, Walt Disney, the Hershey Co., and a host of other kid-focused companies had found a market. Trick-or-Treating soon became fully recognized by adults and children as an American Holiday. Inevitably though, as all religious significance was stripped away, Halloween is becoming more focused on the macabre and the supernatural. In many ways the festival has returned to its Pagan roots, where there is more focus on the actions of the dead than on the actions of the living. The real meaning of the day—that upon death, just souls will share in the Vision of Our Lord—is lost.

As All Saints Day draws closer, I would like to end with this prayer.

O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of Hell, lead all souls to Heaven, especially those in most need of Thy mercy.

Amen.

Think Pink, Go Green

The month of October has been designated as Breast Cancer Awareness Month. As such, I've been hearing a lot about breast cancer and finding a cure. I know a few people who are involved in raising awareness through programs like this and this. Even the NFL has gotten in on the action. Breast cancer is an insidious disease. It has touched my own life through family members. Raising awareness and finding a cure for breast cancer is certainly a worthy cause and I don't want to diminish the time, money, and effort Americans put into cancer awareness programs. But I do want to shift the focus.

October is also Respect Life Month. Begun by the Catholic bishops in America in 1972, the Respect Life program stresses the value and dignity of human life from the moment of conception until natural death. Each year, the Catholic Church in America seeks to bring attention to any number of issues affecting the dignity of and infringing upon the rights of people. Here, you can read the bishop's statement launching this year's Respect Life Month. Many of these life issues are somewhat controversial in the minds of the public, but also among many Christians, as well. I would like to talk about one of these controversial topics, contraception, not only because it affects the dignity of women, but also because it might be causing them cancer as well.

Breast cancer awareness has taken up a huge block of media this month. The Lifetime Channel is integrating the subject in several of their programs. Because of all this attention, I thought I might check out the facts and statistics for myself. All of it is very confusing, to say the least. I did find out a few things though. A total of 2.4 million Americans die each year. Of those, cancer claims the lives of 560,000 people. Statistically, that is pretty significant. 23% of American deaths can be attributed to cancer. From all the media attention, I imagined that breast cancer might account for a large number of these cases, but I was wrong. The actual number of women who die from breast cancer each year is about 40,000. In other words, less than 2% of deaths in America are breast cancer related. In fact, more people die each year from kidney disease than from breast cancer. But I did discover something rather alarming while wading through the quagmire of statistics and research—breast cancer among young women is on the rise. What was once an "old woman" disease is now the leading cause of death in women under 50. Why? What has changed so dramatically in our culture or among women to bring about this plight? Has breast cancer always silently inflicted young women? Is there anything we can do about it? What, if anything, does any of this have to do with respecting life or Christianity?

I'm not certain that anyone will ever be able to definitively determine what causes breast cancer. Over the years lots of organizations have pinpointed the culprits—electromagnetic fields, cow's milk, and plastic. Some ideas get dismissed as quickly as rowdy customers in Walmart. Others, like this one, seem to linger as long as there is an agenda to promote. However, researchers have known for decades that a woman's lifetime exposure to estrogen is associated with her risk of developing breast cancer. That seems pretty straightforward to me. Considering that men make up less than 1% of breast cancer cases, it's probably likely that estrogen plays a fairly significant role in the disease. Normally, women have little control over their estrogen levels. Most young girls are caught by surprise when they first begin menstruating. Older women go through years of waning cycles before menopause. Estrogen is unpredictable. It makes us irritable. It makes us feel euphoric. It makes us emotional. It makes us fat. It gives us the ability to bring new life into the world. And, yes, it leaves us susceptible to breast cancer. None of this has changed in the last 50 years. But something has. More than 85% of women have used some form of hormonal contraceptive during their reproductive years. There is no doubt that widespread use of hormonal contraceptives has changed women. But it may be killing them, as well.

I don't want to go into a long, drawn out discussion on the origins of the oral contraceptive pill. It would take up most of this space and a lot of time. But a quick look at the history of the birth control movement will lead anyone straight to Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood. Her motives for controlling the births of babies are no secret. For 4 decades, Margaret Sanger dreamed of a "magic pill" that would suppress a woman's fertility. Her vision became reality when, in 1951, she met scientists who were willing to help her. The process of providing a contraceptive pill to the public was long and arduous. Reluctantly, the FDA granted approval to market the drug for limited use in 1960. In May of that year, oral contraceptives became the only drug marketed not to treat a medical illness. The safety issues with hormonal contraceptives at the time were dismissed and continue to be misrepresented or ignored all together. Hormonal contraceptives, whether in the form of pills, patches, or injections, continue to be prescribed to healthy women for long term use for the sole purpose of addressing a social issue. The introduction of a contraceptive pill was the beginning of one of the greatest social experiments of our time using women as guinea pigs.

Currently, there are 6 types of hormonal contraceptives available to women in the U.S. Those hormones are either synthetic estrogen or progestin or a combination thereof. Most, if not all, of those hormones are listed in the 11^th Report on Carcinogens, a report issued periodically by the Department of Health and Human Services. This report identifies substances that are known to or are reasonably assumed to cause some form of cancer. It has been known for some time that estrogen causes blood clots, which increases the risk of stroke. There continues to be debate regarding birth control pills and heart disease. And new research continues to surface regarding synthetic progestin and breast cancer. There are also studies linking hormonal contraceptives to liver disease, migraine headaches, and a host of psychological issues. It has also been suggested that the use of hormonal contraceptives has a significant impact on women's partner selection. It seems that infertile women prefer boyish faces to chiseled profiles. It also seems that men actually find fertile women to be more attractive. Based on this information alone, I wonder how anyone could argue that the benefits of hormonal birth control outweigh the risk. And then it occurred to me. Our society, including Christians, is willing to overlook this evil in the name of practicality or pragmatism.

It's certainly reasonable to assume that controlling one's fertility has given women, and men for that matter, a considerable amount of freedom. Because they don't have to worry about pregnancy, women have much more power in their sexual relationships. They are able to satisfy their sexual needs without giving much consideration to their partners. Men and women are able to postpone marriage while enjoying an active sex life. Many couples choose to live together in "trial" marriages without making long term commitments. Couples who do marry are free to focus indefinitely on their emotional and financial needs without having children. Women are able to concentrate on their careers by remaining in the workforce for much longer periods of time. Because of this financial security, women are able to leave marriages where they are unhappy or uncomfortable. Yet this freedom women enjoy comes at a price. Men are able to delay their own adolescence because there is no real expectation that they will become fathers. Men are able to reduce women to sexual objects, a means to satisfy their own sexual desires, while disregarding her physical and emotional needs. Men no longer have to be committed in their sexual relationship, therefore leaving women feeling confused and vulnerable. Any pregnancy that results through contraception is, by nature, unintended by one person or the other. According to the Guttmacher Institute, nearly half of all pregnancies in the U.S. are unintended. In their report, 54% of women who had abortions were using some form of contraception. Surprisingly, a large number of these women are Christians. Many women who embrace their unintended pregnancy often find themselves raising children alone. The social ramifications of all these situations are only beginning to be understood.

Even though these social problems are only now coming to light, they were foreseen long ago when oral contraceptives were first made available to the public. In 1968, Pope Paul VI, almost prophetically, addressed these very issues in his Encyclical Letter, Humanae Vitae (On Human Life). He recognized the increasing demands society was placing on families, especially larger ones. He also recognized the changing of women's roles in that society. But in his wisdom, guided by the Holy Spirit, he also understood the intrinsic evil associated with the direct and deliberate practice of contraception. Although Pope Paul VI couldn't possibly have realized the medical difficulties women might face, he certainly was able to predict the breakdown of marriage, the loss of respect for women, and the general lowering of moral standards in our society. In spite of his words, Christians rejected the notion that ultimately God is in charge of the number of children they have. They instead eagerly embraced what has proven to be evil in order to accomplish what they viewed as a greater good. They dismissed the idea that men and women are called by God to gain mastery over their desires and emotions. They overlooked God's design of a loving marriage, two spouses responsible for each other's physical and emotional well-being. They pushed aside the realization that marriage requires commitment, responsibility, and sacrifice. And they ultimately rejected the understanding that life is a precious gift, given only by God, not left to the arbitrary emotions of mankind.

Prayer for Reverence of Life

All mighty God, giver of all that is good, we thank you for the precious gift of human life.

For life in the womb, coming from your creative power.

For the life of children, making us glad with their freshness and promise.

For the life of young people, hoping for a better world.

For the life of the handicapped and disabled, teaching us humility.

For the life of the elderly, witnessing the ageless values of patience and wisdom.

Like the Blessed Virgin Mary, may we always say yes to your gift. May we defend it and promote it from conception to it's natural end and bring us at last, O Father, to eternal life, in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Intimacy is Not Just a River in Egypt

Our 17-year-old son has disclosed something surprising to us, but perhaps common in today’s youth culture. Read on, and let me know what you think.

No, he is not a homosexual. But he does seem counter-cultural, particularly in how he approaches teenaged dating. Here’s his dilemma: A number of our son’s teenaged friends have told him lately that, if he just made a commitment, he could have a girlfriend. These young people—many from good, Christian families--have told him that he could have plenty of dates if he only chose a girlfriend first. Remarkably, he responded with a wisdom and maturity that I wish I had possessed at his age. He argued back to his peers that dating wasn’t supposed to work that way. He asserted that dating should come first, and if he found someone he really liked, he could pick a girlfriend. He also reasoned that, as he gets older, the narrowing down process will continue into engagement and someday probably marriage. Maybe he should bring this discussion up in his Statistics class. As a senior in high school, he’s looking forward to college and maybe graduate school. He’s in no hurry to select a mate.

Select a mate! That sounds so biological! Why is a blog dedicated to Christian families speaking about dating or courtship in such coarse, biological terms? The answer is simple. Mating or procreation is the goal and purpose of marriage. All the other stuff that moderns talk about—companionship, shared responsibilities, common goals, complimentary values—are important factors towards healthy relationships, but they mean nothing without biology. God endowed each human being with a biological drive, and even at that level of raw instinct, human beings tend to be remarkably selective. Call it magnetic attraction. Honestly, how frequently do a young man and a young woman really have magnetic attraction? One in a hundred, one in a thousand, one in ten thousand times?

Of course, these relatively rare moments of intersexual magnetism are not sufficient cause for mating and procreation. And human beings are capable of resisting these biological urges. Nonetheless, the existence and struggle with these impulses can be wonderfully instructive and enlightening for young people. In short, if God made them magnetically attracted to certain individuals, they should be aware of the attractions and the patterns they represent. Unbalanced, their impulses will lead them astray; absent of the propensities, their lives will lack motivation. A recent example that I heard on Christian radio is illustrative: A college freshman, reeling from a bad relationship, asked something like this: “Should I select my next partner in a relationship based on compatibility or chemistry?” The psychologist/minister guest didn’t have an answer on the spot. But the answer was obvious—both and more! You should choose your mate not just based upon compatibility or chemistry, but both and more including common values, goals, and beliefs. God gave young men and women brains to figure out the logic of compatibility, but also sexual urges to harness, drive, and motivate them. Just as it would be foolish to pursue a sexual attraction with an otherwise incompatible mate, it would also be folly to commit to a partner with whom one had no sexual magnetism.

A lot is written today about compatibility. For the most part, compatibility boils down to what I talked about in a previous blog—identity. Until a young person’s identity has begun to coalesce, that young person will be incapable of forming an intimate sexual relationship with another human being. Any entanglement between two immature individuals (i.e. without developed identities) can only result in the negation of each partner’s identity or the domination of one over the other. In other words, adolescents who attempt to engage in sexual intimacy will either experience their own budding identities dissolving into the quagmire or becoming subject to the domination of another. These are hardly the goals of liberalism or feminism, the very movements that espouse sexual freedom for adolescents! In other words, though a significant portion of today’s adolescents are sexually active, they are developmentally incapable of experiencing intimacy.

Today’s pandemic of sex without intimacy is made possible by one modern invention in particular—birth control. In today’s secular society, biology is something to be thwarted. The modern secular world is guilty of circumventing the natural, sexual biology of young people. Today’s non-Christian family (and, sadly, sometimes the Christian family) has a condom drawer in some discrete location for the children to use, no questions asked. Or the children simply procure prophylactics gratis from school or the health department. In a pinch, they’ll go to the drug store. Just as often, mothers cart their pubescent daughters off to the doctor or health department for birth-control pills or shots. This viewpoint seems fairly representative of the secular perspective on the topic. The net result of all this contraception is that young people are removed from an intimate awareness of their sexuality, particularly the feelings that are inherent to sexual attraction.

The behavioral disconnect occurs because sexual intercourse, now under the wavering thumb of contraception, ceases to have any expected consequence. Young people today feel free to experiment with their sexuality without regard to producing children and therefore without the need of the life-long commitment it takes to raise a child. Nonetheless, their instinctive yearning for fidelity and reliability remains, and they often find themselves irrationally jealous or possessive. Without any concrete reason for these inherent emotions, they repress their feelings and continue to behave in ways that only exacerbate theirs and their partners’ emotions. Some examples are promiscuity and serial monogamy. Without the palpable fear of childbirth, many young people lack the discernment to avoid fornication. They fail to connect sexuality to the profound emotional attachments it produces. They repress their awareness of their own human nature, pretending not to feel angry, jealous, or hurt when they or their partner moves on to the next bed-mate.

The casual attitude toward birth control may have biological consequences as well. Though human beings are capable of sexual intercourse outside of periods of fertility, the human species is nonetheless influenced by fertility. Though human men are capable of sex with a partner incapable of getting pregnant, they are instinctively most attracted to ovulating females. From this reasoning, it follows that sex with a woman who is on birth control (essentially feigning pregnancy and incapable of procreation) is likely to take on a completely different nature than sex between two fertile individuals. Likewise, women on birth control find different men attractive than women not on contraception. They are less apt to seek mates who are more genetically diverse—a common survival strategy for most species—in lieu of partners who are actually more genetically similar. Birth control pills may alter women’s ability to detect pheromones, thus rendering them incapable of distinguishing a suitable partner. This change in women’s preferences should be startling to women who use oral contraceptives. They may find themselves attracted to an individual when under the false veneer of hormonal contraception, but find themselves quite disinterested when they go off contraception in order to have children.

Realistically, contraception and the birth-control pill are enduring realities in the society in which today’s Christian parents raise their children. Thus, the question for Christian parents is not so much how to change society but how to change their relationship with their children. Our 17-year-old son is growing up in a world in which a significantly higher percentage of his peers are sexually active than previous generations (If you click on no other links, click on this one. Graph at top powerfully demonstrates my point). This change was especially dramatic with the advent of the birth-control pill. In the face of societal trends, school-based abstinence-only sexual education programs have been shown to be ineffective. NPR and CNN joyously announced the study results that reportedly denounce abstinence-only education (more to come on that in an upcoming “Mental Heath Desk” topic). The liberal media also downplayed the reality that teenage pregnancy declined at the same time that abstinence-only instruction was on the rise. The progressives fail to acknowledge that, like it or not, abstinence is now a real part of the dialogue on teenage sexuality. If nothing else—even if these school-based abstinence programs were completely ineffective—those of us who believe that children are capable of resisting their libidos have been heard. School-based efforts at teaching abstinence-only, especially in public schools, appear to be destined to fail for the vast majority of students. Teens require the backing of their parents before they will accept such instruction. Furthermore, though the schools may have been unable to reach the children, there is nothing comparable to a consistent relationship between a child and his or her parents, even in the teenage years. Thus, parents who have a consistent dialogue with their children regarding dating, relationships, marriage, values, emotions, and sex are likely to have a significant impact.

Recent events indicate that our 17-year-old son deserves an A+ in Abstinence-Only Instruction. Next year, as he goes off to college, where in most cases COED dorms are the norm, I dearly hope he remembers his lessons.

P.S. No, that is not my son getting cozy with Miley Cyrus in the photo above.

Oh What a Tangled Web......

I realized this week that it has been a month since I’ve blogged. I’ve let the daily intricacies of our life take priority. Since school started, we have had soccer practices and games, Cub Scout meetings, and college visits. It’s taken awhile, but we are slowly falling into a routine. As such, we haven’t really had time to watch a lot of children’s movies. Oh sure, there has been some movie watching, but nothing worth blogging about. In fact, it is by accident that I even have a movie to blog about this week. Since I haven’t really been paying that much attention to our Netflix move queue, I was actually surprised we had something really interesting to watch.

When Coraline arrived in the mail, I had never actually heard of it. My husband remarked that it was produced by Henry Selick and Tim Burton, who produced James and the Giant Peach and The Nightmare Before Christmas. I wasn’t particularly impressed. When our oldest son was about 5 or 6, my mother gave him a copy of the movie James and the Giant Peach for a gift. I thought it was dark, somber, and without merit. That is probably why I never was eager to watch The Nightmare Before Christmas when it came out. Needless to say, I wasn’t expecting much from Coraline. In fact, if I had known about its origins, I probably wouldn’t have gotten it at all. But there it was and the children were whining. What else could I do?

Now usually when I pop in a movie for the little ones, I go about my business. I’ve seen Sleeping Beauty, The Incredibles, and Spider Man at least 40 or 50 times. Watching them at this point would only provide me with really crazy trivia, like the colors of all the Seven Dwarfs’ hats. But Coraline entranced me from the beginning and I just had to watch it. Once I got into it, I’m glad I watched with the children. It was delightfully creepy. It reminded me why I love fairy tales. And it was way better than Barbie Mariposa.

Coraline (PG) is an animated film, based on a novella by the same name. Dakota Fanning is the voice behind Coraline, the only, lonely child of Mel and Charlie Jones. As the story begins, the family moves into a huge, rural Victorian style home that has been converted into several apartments. They share the house with some very interesting characters—two retired actresses and a Russian ex-acrobat. The family’s landlord, Mrs. Lovat, has a talkative grandson named Wyborne, who attempts to befriend Coraline when she moves in. Coraline finds her parents boring and pre-occupied with their work as writers. Since they have little time for her, Coraline spends her days playing in the gardens, making friends with the neighbors, and exploring the house. In an effort to get close to Coraline, Wybie gives her a hand-made doll with button eyes that bears a striking resemblance to Coraline. About that same time, Coraline discovers a small doorway hidden in the house. At night, she is able to travel through the doorway to the Other World. In this parallel universe, Coraline’s Other Parents are warm and attentive and her neighbors are young and exciting. Soon Coraline discovers that her Other World is not what it seems. When her Other Mother reveals her true nature, Coraline is faced with the possibility that her normal life and parents may be lost to her forever.

I don’t know what the writer’s intended, but Coraline is a bit like an old fashioned fairy tale. I say “old fashioned” because fairy tales have changed a lot over time. I was first introduced to these old tales when I was in High School. I was lucky enough to have an English teacher who let us watch movies in class. There was a catch, though. We had to write about them afterwards. One of the first movies we watched was The Company of Wolves, a gothic thriller that resembles the children’s story of Little Red Riding Hood. That movie led me to the fascinating world of fairy tales, Charles Perrault, and the Brothers Grimm. Originally, their stories weren’t necessarily for children. They were sometimes grisly or graphic and always accompanied by a moral. Coraline is exactly that—so be warned.

As I mentioned before, I wasn’t sure about the content of Coraline. We watched the movie with our 8 year-old and 3 year-old sons and our 5 year old daughter. For awhile, everyone was pretty happy. Then it started. The movie got really creepy when Coraline traveled, Alice-in-Wonderland style, through the doorway. It became, quite frankly, really scary. Honestly, it took me by surprise as well. The movie got particularly scary as Other Mother’s true character was revealed to Coraline. In spite of the rats and bats, I don’t think those scenes are necessarily distressing to older children. What bothered me more was the portrayal of the actresses in the Other World. In my opinion, it was animated burlesque, right down to the tassels. Even the fate of poor Wybie bothered me less than those dancing old ladies. In spite of that, though, it’s worth watching. The writers might not know it, but, in the fashion of Grimm and Perrault, there is a big, fat, juicy moral for Christians.

Most people who watch will probably agree that there is a moral to this story. I suspect, though, they’ll be thinking morals a la Disney. They’ll probably say something like, “Be careful what you wish for.” Or “Goth girls have brains, too.” They may be right. But as a Christian, I think there is something much more interesting to discuss. The Devil is the Father of Lies and he will do anything to convince Christians to reject Our Lord.

In the movie, Coraline is clearly unhappy that her parents are unable to devote all their attention to her. She perceives their lack of attention as lack of love. In this state of mind, Coraline is vulnerable to the Other Mother’s schemes. The Other Mother draws Coraline into her world by fulfilling all of Coraline’s wishes and desires. Coraline becomes so mesmerized by this world that she returns several times. Coraline finally begins to realize the danger of Other Mother only when she insists that Coraline trade her eyes for buttons to live with her. In a similar way, the Devil attempts to draw Christians away from God. Because of mankind’s fallen nature, human beings have sinful desires and inclinations. Satan is clever. He convinces us that following our passions will make us happier, stronger, smarter, and better. For a time, this may be true. Just as Coraline was drawn to her Other World, we turn to our sinful behavior looking for happiness. That happiness is short lived, however, when we realize that we must repent or remain separated from God.

Satan, sin, and vice are not very popular subjects these days. In fact, vices are often considered virtues by modern society. At the very least, they are labeled as diseases or conditions. Under these circumstances, it can be difficult for Christians to separate Satan’s lies from God’s Truth. It can certainly be difficult for Christian parents to help their children sort out the messages they get from the media and society. It might be difficult but certainly not impossible with the graces of God. Dante’s Inferno might help, but I forgot—that’s just a video game. I’m thinking I’ll just stick to the fairy tales.

(Photo Credit: Donna Garde, Texas Parks & Wildlife)