The Void

The Void

-Part 1-

There are two kinds of people in this world.

So, which are you?

Are you the kind that must see in order to believe,

Or, do you believe in order to see?

To whom do they turn?

Mary (not her real name) was late for work – again. “I’ve got to get my act together,” she chided herself, as she hastily strode out of her master bedroom toward the kitchen. “Grab your purse, check yourself in the bathroom mirror one last time, and let’s get going!” She encouraged herself with the notion that with the kids already off to school, with just a couple of more moments, luck, and no traffic delays, she could arrive at her first appointment only fifteen minutes late. A single mother with a seventeen year-old son and eleven year-old daughter, Mary was a home-care nurse who had rounds to make with various patients every day, a tight schedule. She knew her patients depended upon her and looked for her to show up when she was supposed to. It frustrated her to let them down. “Okay, okay, let’s see, where did I put my purse? I know I had it on the table where I always have it.” Not on the table. She scanned the entire kitchen for the tan, leather bag that she had carried for the last couple of years. That’s odd. The purse simply wasn’t there…not on the table, not on the counters, nowhere to be seen. “I always leave my purse on the table, for just this reason! ” she told herself. She blew a sigh of frustration and stomped back toward the bedroom. “Great! This is just freakin’ great…I know I put my purse on the table…now I will be late!” She sped down the hall, angry at herself, rounded the doorway into her room…and froze. With a look of total horror on her face, she stumbled backward out of the doorway, her eyes locked on what her mind could not comprehend. Every single one of her drawers, all of them, was extended out to the point of falling. “This can’t be,” she thought, “That’s impossible!” The blood rose in her cheeks and her arms tingled. “No!” she whispered. She had just left her bedroom. Everything had been neat and orderly, as she always kept things. She was home alone, no one was there. She had heard nothing. How could she not hear that? Drawers make a lot of noise being pulled open. But, there was no denying it…now, her chest-of-drawers, both of her night stands, and even her jewelry armoire’s drawers were pulled all the way out. It was if something was mocking her, manipulating her, wanting her to fail.

Her mind reeling, she staggered back toward the kitchen. “I need some water, I need to sit down,” she thought. For the past several months, since moving into the quaint, two-story house in a quiet neighborhood, the kids had been complaining almost constantly about unusual things happening to them. She had told them it was just an old house, they creak, they move, they make unusual noises. Her two children had insisted that it was far more than that, but since nothing had ever happened to her, she brushed it aside. But, if she were forced to be totally honest, she did feel something was amiss. A deep foreboding inside her said that all was not right. It was simply that she so desperately needed for things to be good…to be safe…to be right. She just could not let herself think bad things anymore, not after what all they had been through the last few years. Now, as she staggered toward the kitchen, this foreboding feeling that she had ignored was no longer in her gut, but in her throat. She gasped for air, her hands clawing at the hall walls for support. She reached the kitchen, thankfully, and made it to the sink. Her shaking, trembling hand reached up and crudely flung open the cabinet door and grabbed a glass. She turned the faucet on and filled it halfway, and gulped the whole thing down. She wiped away her lips with the back of her hand and filled the glass again, more slowly and more under control this time. She slowly turned, beginning to feel better, falling back against the counter with her backside. She rested her weight against it, seeking relief because her knees were weak. Suddenly, the glass shattered on the hard tiled floor, the water splashing her feet and the bottom of her legs. Mary had lost the ability to hold the glass and again her eyes were starring, unable to comprehend what she saw before her. On the table, right smack there in the middle of it, as plain as the nose on your face, was her purse.

The situation I just outlined with Mary is very typical of the cases I work as a demonologist. A single mother with two kids…a dad and mom with two teenage daughters…a family of four adults living in one home…a mother with two adult children and their live-ins and their children all in one cramped trailer, and so on and so forth. Many and varied are those who come to us for help, with unexplained things going on that have them baffled, always anxious, and sometimes downright terrified.

To whom do they turn?

How do we answer that question? I know, as a fifty-four year old man who grew up in the Christian faith, who has served overseas – in Russia no less – as a missionary, served as an ordained associate pastor at a Church in Michigan, and who has always believed in Jesus Christ as truly the incarnate Son of God, that the answer should unequivocally be: the Church. They should be turning to the Church for help.

Well, they don’t.

Why?

The honest answer: because in main, the Church cannot or will not help them. By Church, I mean the local Church, by and large. Sadly, it simply matters little whether that Church be Protestant or Catholic, the result is rarely different. I will say the following in order to be a bit more discerning in this issue: their best chance for help when it does concern the Church lies in two seemingly diametrically opposed factions of the Body of Christ: either the Catholic Church or Protestant charismatic denominations. To look for help in so-called “mainline” Protestant denominations is tantamount to looking for that which simply does not exist. But their true best chance for help? It is my sad duty to inform the reader that their best chance lies outside the Church...any Church, and therein lies the crux of this article – this situation should not be.

The reason for this catastrophe is that in being unable to offer help to those experiencing what Mary is experiencing, a great void exists. Within this void or vacuum of the lack of the Church’s teaching and aid in such situations as Mary’s, exists the demonic world's rushing in to quickly fill with the substance of “help” of its own. It should make us all shudder to imagine how diabolical it is to think one is receiving help, when one is only receiving hell. It should also make those in the hierarchy of the Christian Church, no matter the denomination, bow their heads in shame at what they are ceding to the enemy of our souls. Last I heard, souls matter to God. Why don’t they to our leaders, our pastors, our priests? The clarion call has been rung by none other than Popes Paul VI and John Paul II, warning us clearly of the dangers of the devil and that he must be fought against. Why are those noble and godly Popes being so ignored? Why?

What are Mary’s options? Truly, what are they?

When the Church is no option, the “world” is turned to for an answer. In that world, is the morass and playground of such pseudo-solutions as psychics, tarot readers, mediums, spiritists, witches (no longer called witches, but wiccans – a much more acceptable term), occultists, faith healers, New Agers, Reiki healers, Zen masters, and even Satanists. And it is to these, so readily available and so very willing to listen, that the Mary’s of the world turn. Instead of the ridicule, disbelief and shame they would experience if they went to their pastor or priest, these practitioners of the above accept them with open arms and beguiling smiles, and are quick to validate their experiences as not only real – but positive. It is then that they portray and “spin” the person’s experience to their advantage, and the hook is set. Contrast that acceptance and welcoming aid with the stony silence that is met at Church when they even allude to something going on of a "paranormal" or demonic nature. The silence thunders and says it all. "They think I'm nuts...a psych job...or even worse, that I brought it on myself." Truth be told, the "victim" does know that deep inside, that very often they indeed have fallen away from the Church, or more importantly, their relationship to Christ; and so part of the problem is their own interior guilt and shame. So, back to the Church, why is the Church today in such an abhorrent position where it cannot or will not help the Mary’s of our time, or at least send out vibes that it is willing to at least listen? My take? It simply is a matter of the Church - that Body of Christ established by our Lord with the mission to go out and seek and save that which was lost - as tragically having become - in regard to this issue - one of three things: ignorant; opposed; or willing but ill-equipped. I will describe each of these “attitudes” in turn.

I will continue this article in a future post. Look for The Void - Part 2