I connect with Dia de los Muertos just being in California and being a part of a Hispanic
culture that's blended from Southern California up to Northern California and definitely believing
that this time of year is when the veil is the nest between the worlds and being able
to connect and honor the dead and remember them and it's really beautiful to put them
on altars and remember their faces and have dance with them.
Locals dress up as skeletons, men dress as women and parties are thrown in graveyards
to welcome death.
So what are some of the practices that these people who practice Dia de los Muertos or
Day of the Dead, what is it that they practice?
Well number one, they practice this matter of constructing altars or what they call altares
to honor the dead.
Altars are often decorated with an array of flowers, fruits and favorite foods, candles,
Day of the Dead bread, skeletons and skulls.
Very nice isn't it?
It's just to use all that to honor the dead, it's a very nice thing to use.
Child altars are filled with candy and toys whereas liquor and cigarettes are left for
the adults for their long journey back.
Yeah that's really honoring it.
Let's put some pot right here, let's put some Marlboro cigarettes right here and some liquor
which probably killed this person due to cirrhosis of the liver.
Well let's see what the Bible says about altars here.
Here in Deuteronomy chapter 12 verse number 1, the Bible says here these are the statutes
and judgments which ye shall observe to do in the land which the Lord God of thy fathers
giveth thee to possess it all the days that ye live upon the earth.
Ye shall utterly destroy all the places wherein the nations which ye shall possess serve their
gods upon the high mountains and upon the hills and under every green tree and ye shall
overthrow their altars and break their pillars and burn their groves with fire and ye shall
hew down the graven images of their gods and destroy the names of them out of that
place.
What is it saying?
I don't want nothing to do with this.
That's what God's saying.
When you come into a land and you see the altars where they worship their false gods,
tear it down, burn it, I don't want nothing to do with it.
And let me say this, there's places here in Los Angeles especially in Detroit where altars
are not just in the homes of people, they're in the streets.
I mean there's people who say yeah we fill the streets with altars so all the spirits
can just roam and come into the homes, I mean that's wicked.
Filled with bones and skulls and things that are morbid.
This is a very wicked practice.
Go to 2 Kings chapter 21.
It's obvious that altars is not a good thing, alright?
But yet we see today, we'll see in a couple weeks, they're everywhere.
And people don't even wince at it, they think it's a good thing, they think it's a beautiful
thing, they decorate it with all kinds of flowers and make it look all pretty.
It's a loving of death.
I've been waiting three weeks for this.
I love the skull, I love the culture, it fascinates me.
I'm delighted by the parade, it met all my expectations.