Choosing the Focus

This time of year just gets crazy.  The anti-holiday season was officially declared right after Sukkot.  It seems for a month before Halloween, the religious world draws their line in the sand, then discusses how they can affect all those who are still participating.  What they actually end up doing is sharing the same information ad infinitum with the people who are already not participating.

I remember coming out of traditional religion, and it seemed when people asked me what I believed, my beliefs were defined by what I no longer believed.  I try to be patient with folks who are just now going through that as well, but with social media, seems everyone is now a pastor or rabbi.  What I've truly noticed is I can usually tell which denomination or tradition the person claims to have come out of, by their continued fervor with their new information.  Often it seems our faith is based upon our own perspective, rather than the truth of the Word of G-d.

I've suddenly got friend requests from the same people who unfriended me last year over Jeremiah 10:3, 4 and the Christmas tree.  While the Thanksgiving debate is about to gear up, I have to admit, my Thanksgiving perspective only has a single Scriptural reference, so technically that's not based upon the two witness requirement of Torah.  My perspective of Thanksgiving is based more upon the same argument the Americans of European descent have now regarding brown immigrants.  As an original brown inhabitant, I am well aware of the fact, feeding and seeing to the need of immigrants will definitely change the culture of a society . . .  History has already proven it!

As for my Scriptural reference regarding Thanksgiving.    And Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like unto the feast that is in Judah, and he offered upon the altar. So did he in Bethel, sacrificing unto the calves that he had made: and he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places which he had made.  So he offered upon the altar which he had made in Bethel the fifteenth day of the eighth month, even in the month which he had devised of his own heart; and ordained a feast unto the children of Israel: and he offered upon the altar, and burnt incense.  I Kings 12:32,33

Thanksgiving usually falls in the 8th month of the Biblical calendar and since the Scriptural Feast Days are not observed by the majority of the nation, it does seem rather defiant to observe Jeroboam's feast day.  Every third year or so, Thanksgiving falls in the 9th month of the Biblical calendar and this year is one of those years.

I no longer define myself by what I "don't believe."  Life is just too full of sharing and doing what I do believe!  Rather than endure, enjoy, or energize the seasonal debates, I believe and highly recommend that we just "come out from among them and be separate."  I'm not talking about hiding, I'm talking about not focusing on the hubbub.  I'm going to focus on what and Whom I do believe in!  If someone has question or comment, they do make it known!