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Permalink Reply by Olivia on 7th mo. 20, 2014 at 4:24pm

part two of where my thoughts are going in this exploration, continuing where I left off with the two women who came by the church for Holy Water. 

I was telling them about my dream...

I had dreamt that there was a very evil spirit at my back, in my dream it was as solid as a human being only with a terribly evil energy.   I couldn't see it but I couldn't get it off of me either and in the dream I somehow remembered in mid panic to say "God??"   (= a one-word question:  "what do I do with this?!")  

Perhaps in answer, I (in the dream) suddenly turned around to look over my right shoulder at the darkness behind me and I said to it "I bless you."

It suddenly shriveled up like a deflated balloon and shot around the room (of my dream setting) before landing at my feet, completely harmless. 

The lesson of that dream has stayed with me:  I had never considered to bless even the forces of darkness themselves!  I didn't consciously choose to do it in the dream either, but when I asked God what to do, this happened immediately.

I shared this dream with the women who wanted to get the demons out of the government building where they worked.  They were of a much more conservative faith perspective than I and called what I was doing "giving my testimony."  ha     I guess I just prefer the language "sharing a dream" -- and "holding my cards close but wondering if these ladies were nuts".   (I'd been very good at knowing how to "be normal" even while God was showing me that reality didn't fit inside the box I imagined and had been taught)

My clearness committee gave me the space to consider that perhaps when I'm exploring this leading and these women show up with such a strange ON-TOPIC request...maybe it is confirming that there's something there. 

I know God does things.  I know that I don't -- and that I shouldn't.  My role is not to do anything but may just be to panic and then say "God?"  

I know that the only trouble I get into with this stuff (and it's a real problem) is that I think *I* must be supposed to DO something, instead of just recognizing that the only thing I should do is just let God do all of it and mind my own business.  Seeing it sometimes, for some reason.   (which blows my mind and makes no sense to me that I should be aware of any of this)

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Permalink Reply by James C Schultz on 7th mo. 22, 2014 at 8:23am

I was half hoping you would not continue this topic.  I've used salt which I blessed myself, sometimes with another.   Holy water, like salt, is only as useful as the prayer of the person who blessed it.  The Catholic church does have a prayer for salt.  Ask a Jesuit for it if you want it.  Since this topic started I've been getting insights into things I don't want insights into.  I prefer to think of maladjusted people as having hormonal problems.  It's easier to accept.  Some dietary advice given lightly; a reference to a book - much easier than sustained prayer and fasting, and then if I actually start down that path when do I realize that the work of my prayer and fasting is over and the rest is in God's hand.  I think that is where you need a grounded clearance committee who believes in what you are being called to do.  If you have found one you are blessed (or maybe cursed ): )  It sounds like you have a gift in this area.  Pray for wisdom, read all you can on intercessory prayer and don't limit your research to authors who belong to theologically correct churches.  Most of all remember the actual work is God's, you are just the prayer vessel.  Back off when your health degenerates - Physical or Mental - sometimes that's a sign that your part of the work is finished.  If anyone in your family starts to have unforeseen problems just stop.  You have bitten off more than you were supposed to.  While demons don't have any power over us when we are in Christ, they can give us and those close to us thoughts which if we don't take them prisoner influence our behavior,  including eating habits which can lead to health issues.

Hope that helps.

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Permalink Reply by Olivia on 7th mo. 22, 2014 at 9:54am

Hi James!

Thank you for your wonderful honesty  -- "I was half hoping you would not continue this topic."

I think what I want to offer right now is that it feels to me like this 'whole thing' is not nearly as complicated as we fear it is.   What you call being 'in Christ' I have experienced also as a way of walking through the world where all doors seem to be open or at least none closed...:-)   I was directed toward a particular healing bodywork modality (learning to give people treatments) and it was not one I am ultimately using, and to me it was highly questionable at the time, but I felt so drawn to be there doing that and also so safe:  the whole time I was in the class which dealt with such a variety of new agey things that I didn't know if God was on board with all that...    It's not that God wasn't on board with it, or was.  It was just as if it was all completely fine and God could use any and all of that.

This has been my sense too with the politically charged fact that gay people exist and how does our culture want to respond to that.  It's so easy for so many people to think "somebody's a sinner here.  I can smell it.  And it's not me."   And it seems more likely that the truth hovers around us and allows space for all of us, and that the divine flows well through all of us too. God uses all kinds of people, and doesn't need them to know how to "cast out demons" in order to cast them out in all kinds of usual / normal fashions... such as the way we dismiss a particular thought that feels unhealthy after considering it for a minute, or the way we get a healthy craving for a mineral-rich meal if we are depleted in something.  Or the way that reaching out in love can remove all kinds of blockages between people and cultures.  We don't need to think of these as "casting out" anything...but it's all the same thing and is something that I think we can actually just rest easy in.

If you find that God is lovable and you kind of keep finding reasons to love God... you can probably go anywhere in any situation and be fine because your heart is fine on that level. 

I don't know exactly what's going on with mine yet but my impression is that it's not a matter of overdoing anything involving darkness.... I actually try to not dwell in that place at all and just enjoy God and not judge myself or others (please don't fear or judge yourself either!  you're so much more wonderful than that!)

I am currently of the impression that what's been going on for a while is kind of the opposite of what it may look like:  it's like -- for years I was sick and held on to too much gunk and poor dynamics with other people and myself...  and now, every time I conquor that "ooops, here comes another wave of spiritual detoxification!"  argh.... but yes, a blessing to be on this journey with God.

I may have some sort of thing to keep developing and sharing with others about being liberal, realllly liberal, and whatever "casting out" is.   I don't believe in the darkness being sentient.  I never will.  The only thing sentient about the darkness is that there's still some light in it.  So perhaps the liberal vision of these "forces of darkness" and what the liberals have to offer to others in this seeking of health is that we can be open to and trust in the divine of all its mysterious kinds within us, we can just seek ways to breathe and live freely and be who we are and just let go into a God that allows for allll that and so much more and that there is no reason to fear.

Light and darkness are not just metaphors but perhaps expressions of our physical self.   If we can just be light about myself and others and see light in them and trust in the light and Light that is coming through me and through you.... (the Quaker experiment, no?)   won't we have cast out our demons anyway?   and maybe who cares... or maybe we're into that sort of way of seeing what's at work and we do care to name it...    maybe we sense it or maybe we don't (shrug).  That's not really the point.   I just wanted some elbow room I think -- some chance to incorporate this a little bit more into the liberal vision. 

I believe I just read on this site where A.J. Mendoza shows us that we believe in Hell a lot more than we believe in Heaven.   To me "casting out demons" is not the point, nor should it be.  But it's good for us to know that we can let go and let God and that some supernaturally wonderful things do happen from time to time.   Many of us need more internal freedom to allow for that instead of fearing we are crazy.

(I hope this "rant" is coherent... it was written with joy and a bit fast and loose as a gut response.  Please feel free to get me back on track or hold me accountable for anything I've just contradicted from my earlier comments, or for what you think we're called to.)

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Permalink Reply by James C Schultz on 7th mo. 22, 2014 at 8:13pm

I think you are doing fine.  When Paul says let me show you a more perfect way and goes on to describe, or at least try to describe, Agape Love I believe that he is saying love is a better way to handle anything we come across, including darkness.  I believe Jesus is God's love personified and we can certainly believe that it was that Agape Love that is Christ that did the casting out of the biblical "demons" regardless of what we would call them today.  I would just warn you to not get involved with people who act violently in a non-rational way.  There is more going on there then can be dealt with on a casual, non-consuming basis.  Those encounters require a strong supporting prayer and community network.

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Permalink Reply by Olivia on 7th mo. 23, 2014 at 12:36am

Hi James,

I think one thing I am working out as we talk this topic through is this:  though I have been present to a few things that felt dramatic to me, on the whole my experiences are not actually the sort of drama that I associate with the evangelical version of this thing.  In fact I have an active dislike of the drama and showyness -- but also I am weaker than that version suggests.   My sense that "casting out happens" in our world is mostly over small potatoes....   safe situations like a willing person in need of support...or perhaps someone that may look dangerous but is actually a willing person in need of support.  If they are actually coming from violent... well I have never been drawn into one of those experiences and hope not to be.  Yes, best to avoid those people entirely if given a choice (and I thank you for your concern on the matter!)

I can see that you have a knack for considering these moments of life as spiritual moments where the divine can intervene and does, and that you value praying over people, and offering them spiritual tools and supports such as the salt you spoke of.  Perhaps more too....      Thank you for what you have shared. I am sorry for what has been uncomfortable about it -- I am enriched by having this chance to talk these matters out with you and others.

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Permalink Reply by Olivia on 7th mo. 23, 2014 at 12:38am

A BIT MORE ON WHAT WE ARE DOING...

I read in a book some years back by a catholic healer (of the evangelical persuasion) that people get all weirded out thinking that "casting out of demons" is like the graphic and sometimes demented exorcisms we've seen in our movies, etc over the years.   What he had found most people were dealing with was better understood as "the spirit of ____ this, the spirit of ____that"....  

He said that these spirits can be understood by the symptom they present, so for example a person can be afflicted with simply a spirit of anxiety, or a spirit of cynicism, etc.   He saw great value in us all recognizing that all our mundane moods and influences are spiritual in nature...not getting bogged down thinking we were evil or filled with  demons needing to be exorcised, but recognizing that we all are subject to spiritual information and choices that we can in fact ...banish.  This is my paraphrasing and he sounded more Catholic and less liberal in his persuasions...but this above is how I understood his words on the matter.

This stayed with me and informed my view of things in these "small potatoes" situations I keep experiencing.  Perhaps this is part of what my leading is trying to introduce in a liberal fashion:  that in our practice of mindfulness and surrender to divine will.... in the actual mundane minutae of our own regular lives, we can participate in the casting out of our own demons, and sometimes those of other people.  Due to the psychic stuff I may sense, it may not so much be that I am doing more than anyone else would be doing...but that I am sensing that THAT's what is happening. 

There may be a communication aspect to this:  bringing awareness that when we will the good, reach out in love, turn the light on in one way or another... we are also doing something that has spiritual value, and that we too can and do, in Christ, bring this power to it.  I definitely sense that many of our routine therapies and ways of caring for one another also have the power to "cast out"...and do.     

Thank you very much for this discussion, for sharing your own sense of things and your experiences, and for giving me space to perhaps work out a little of where to go from here with the Quaker community.  I still have not one idea where to go from here (and it's a good time to focus on personal health), but I am glad to see that sharing about this topic will not entirely meet with silence, and can be a meaningful and mutual discussion.

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Permalink Reply by James C Schultz on 7th mo. 25, 2014 at 6:06pm

there's much to that.

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