Houston Day 522 - Happy Halloween!

...and, also, given that I'm writing this post on the 1st of November, happy All Saints Day.

Has Halloween become more of a thing in Australia since I left? Here it's enormous.  People of all ages are in costume all throughout the day, and grownups are also in costume on the Saturday before at big parties.  And trick-or-treating is for real, y'all! TV doesn't lie.

Last year we had more trick-or-treaters because our old house was more welcoming (you could see the front door from the street) but this year I got into the whole costume thing more.  And evnWe were in Austin last weekend checking out the Texas Book Festival with Sam & Katie (Sam works at Exxon) and saw many fun people out in costume.  Yesterday, on Halloween proper, Little House had a costumed rehearsal and so I went as a Weeping Angel from Doctor Who! It was an interesting test of our concentration to be doing A Little House on the Prairie with Morticia, Kermit, Barney Stinson, a Woopie Cushion and a Starbucks coffee cup.

The day ended with our regular "family dinner" with Nick and Bekah, and Bekah (who is delightfully childlike even on her normal days) was on a sugar high from so much candy that it was quite hilarious.  And then she crashed and so they went home fairly early.

Bekah after too much sugar

So today is All Saints Day, which we have kind of celebrated already, at....church....yeah, we went to church.  And then we liked it enough to go back.  And now we're planning to go back again...and I'm having lunch with the pastor this week....we hesitate to say "yes, we're definitely joining this community" but it is at least a place where we feel like we could belong, which is a HUGE step.  Their name is Zeteo, which is Greek for "I seek" and you can look at their website here.  We first went with Heidi and Joel McKerrow, who were visiting us on their world travels (that was good for the soul), when Joel was asked to perform his poetry at their worship gathering.  We had dinner at the pastor's house afterwards, and she explained to me that central to Zeteo are Jesus, the bible and communion.  Not - and this is my favourite part - that you have to believe anything in particular about those things, but you must engage with them.  And everyone agreeing and believing all the same things is not their aim.  So anyway, the first service we went to at Zeteo was All-Saints-themed, in which we celebrated people - living or dead - who are points of light in our lives.

Joel & Heidi - two of my favourite people in the world!

So happy All Saints, everyone.  I hope you have light and hope and that you share that around.