Today is Monday, October 31st, 2022, and you're listening to the Daily Article podcast, written by Dr. Jim Denison.

Psalm 1197 says, Oh, how I love your law. It is my meditation all the day.

At least 154 people were killed, and 149 others were injured in a crowd surge at a packed

Halloween festival Saturday night in Seoul, South Korea.

In other weekend news, Somalia's president said at least 100 people were killed Saturday in

two terrorist car bombings, though the death toll could rise.

And yesterday in India, an overcrowded suspension bridge collapsed, killing at least 134.

Speaker of the house, Nancy Pelosi's husband, Paul, is recovering from surgery after being

attacked early Friday morning by a hammer-wielding intruder at their San Francisco home.

Paul Pelosi suffered a fractured skull and injuries to his hands and right arm, but he is expected

to recover fully.

Oscar Wilde observed, the real tragedies of life occur in such an inartistic manner that they

hurt us by their crude violence, their absolute incoherence, their absurd want of meaning.

In a world encompassed with such daily suffering, it is not surprising that we would

invent holidays like Halloween and station them throughout the year. The typical U.S. year

has ten such holidays, beginning with New Year's Day, and ending with Christmas. The Catholic

liturgical year celebrates the lives of various saints on more than 120 different days across

the year. Some of our holidays serve a diversionary purpose as they distract us from the challenges we face.

Others serve a more edifying purpose as they focus on faith, country, and family.

But here's a fact you may not have considered regarding America's holidays, both sacred and secular.

Not one of them is found in the Bible.

Nowhere does scripture command us to set apart a specific day for observing Jesus' birth, or his resurrection, much less our other holidays.

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