Natural-Divine

 Do Christians really believe in 'incarnation' that God really became a human being? However Christian imaginations are generally about super-naturals, victories, and triumph. Is it not abominable to imagine Jesus or Mary having a romantic feeling? Were not thousands of generations open to natural graces that open the channels of race towards a supernatural grace of Immaculate Conception? It is easy to glorify God 'becoming' bread (which is not correct. Eucharistic presence is Christ in the form of bread), but difficult to accept God acting in natural ways/laws. In the first, there is a miraculous wonder, in the second, it is a call to relate our life to God so naturally as we are.

Good and evil

We are habituated to binarize between good and evil. There are often many things that cook up evil, but remain invisible or unnoticed. These constructive elements may be disguised within the very things we have categorized as good and holy. This chosen good reflects the cruelty of our hypocritical judgements.

Where will we place God in this good-evil creation? Which is a holy people, a leader, or a nation? Truth is unconcealed only when there is kindness and compassion. So, God cannot take sides. If we put God into our chosen good and maintain the disguised evil, surely, we will also promote evil-making structures in the name of God. It can create rituals, customs and even history. 

Truth is grey and lives pass through varied struggles of good and evil. There are chosen evils and imposed evils. The light of truth is in the honesty of heart which is rarely known.

Mark of the Covenant

The owner would make a mark on his animals as a sign that it belonged to him. Many groups of people also had certain marks of them as an identity of the particular group. 

Circumcision marked the sign of the covenant with God as one belonged to God. But the law-covenant bond followed a pattern forbidding to safeguard the purity of the covenant. 

Covenant of grace is inviting, not forbidding. Its a belonging to Christ, being in him, he being in us, and we all being in him. The imprint of Christ is the mark of the new covenant, sign of being loved and found by Christ. Reception of baptism does not guarantee this imprint in us. Covenant of grace takes us to a communion, producing its fruits.

Halloween

It is better not to demonise nor canonise Halloween. It is to be taken in the context of the anglosaxon-celtic cultural background. Like Onam in Kerala, it's a harvest festival. It's perhaps because of it, the role of the tomato, and pumpkin ... It is also a new year celebration, the beginning of a new time. As the (re)beginning of time, the dead are believed to return homes. Afraid of evil spirits the living would disguise their face to escape from them.
Gradually all these became fun and game.
Many of them who celebrate don't even think about a God to dishonour or a devil to be celebrated. Some people like to see devils everywhere and they do find them. People who are religious and God's people engaging in war, hatred, greed, power-games ... are all for God's glory. There, in fact, beliefs are worshipped than God, and evils can be easily justified.