Does it always smell like pee here?
Originally written some time in May of this year:
So, it's 2am, and I'm here at my new place of employment. To put it quite simply, 'here' is a home for abused and neglected children called "Health and Educational Services." It smells like pee here right now because the torrential rains that lashed New England last week flooded the bottom floor of the establishment, and they had to rip out the carpets to stave off mold. Unfortunately, whatever happened in the time between the coming of the Floodwaters-of-God's-Judgment Upon-the-Unrestrained-Evil-That-Is-Massachussets and the removal of the offending carpet left the place smelling rather like a truckstop mens room. The word on the street is that the new carpet will remedy all things. It's almost eschatological. The job I am 'training' for is basically an overnight watchman/janitor. I just learned the janitorial part...not exactly rocket science, and it only takes about 40 minutes. Other than that little flurry of activity, the other 90% of my job will be staying awake, and making sure the kids stay in their rooms, and tending to them if they have any legitimate needs. Apparently, these overnight shifts are pretty low intensity. That's putting it mildly. Other than the cleaning duties, I can read/study, surf the net, and basically screw off while getting compensated handsomely. It will pay more than Starbucks, give me more hours, give me plenty of time to study on the clock, benefits, two weeks of paid vacation per year guaranteed, and a load of paid official holidays. Now for the two downsides: First, as I already pointed out, it will be an overnight shift: from 11pm to 9am, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings. Of course, this means a significantly disrupted sleep schedule on these days, which I will hopefuly be able to more or less 'reset' on Sundays by staying up and going to bed at a regular hour on Sunday evening, rather than sleeping a portion of the daylights hours (as I will have to on Friday and Saturday). Now for other downside: The building we are located in is haunted by the apparition of a young child. Yup, thats right people, a good ole' fashioned New England we-burn-people-at-the-stake-and-other-crazy-shit haunting.
Great...
Apparently, whatever 'he' is, 'he' isn't particularly malicious, and 'he' doesn't appear to anyone directly, only out of the corner of ones eye, or by causing various sorts of mischief like slamming doors, unseasonal temperature variations from room to room upstairs, or by just giving you an incredible case of the willies as you traverse the stairs up to the kitchen and bathrooms. My 'office' is downstairs. My 40-minute per night cleaning duties are upstairs. "He" never appears downstairs, or to any of the children, (who are also securely downstairs at night). "He" only appears upstairs.
Great...
The guy that hooked me up with this opportunity is one of my current roomates, and a Christian. He told me he has only had one run-in with 'him', and that was the thrice-repeated mysterious door slamming. At that point, my roomate spoke out loud to the whatever 'it' was and rebuked in the name of Jesus Christ, told it to never appear or 'affect' him again unless it was ready to be cast out. He hasn't had much problem since, other than what can only be described as a few self-inflicted cases of 'the willies.' Tonight, in the midst of my 'training' I was left alone upstairs for several minutes. I wasn't feeling anything, no presence, no anything. Those of you that know me, know that even as a Charismatic Christian who believes in the immediacy of the spiritual world, know that I am still a bit of a skeptic. So, I hedged my bets...I stopped mopping for a minute, leaned against my mop handle, and spoke out loud (most likely to myself) and told whatever 'it' might be that I served the Living and Most High God, and that in the end, even though I wasn't that fearsome, Who I serve, was. I told it that it would be exorcised and sent packing without further ado if it tried anything with me. That being said, I went back to my mopping.
So...What do y'all think?
As orthodox Christians, we basically believe that whatever composes the spiritual/non-material aspect of a human being departs this existence upon physical death, or actually just ceases with biological death, awaiting resurrection at the end of history. This 'part' is most often referred to as the 'soul.' Moreover, we affirm the the physical body will be resurrected on the last day to biological life, and whatever the soul was doing/wherever it was, it will be reunited with the body at that point, if it was ever seperated to begin with. The Christian doctrine of the resurrection is not altogether that simple, nor would everyone agree with me on what goes on with the persons soul between death and resurrection, but thats kind of the basic nuts and bolts of a Christian notion of what happens to a person between now and the end of time, and the final resurrection of the dead. With that being said, I belive in demonic and angelic forces at work on our plane of existence. These are not dead people, they are righteous angels that enjoy fellowship with God, and fallen angels that rebelled against God at some point in the past.
But...
Apparently, this 'little guy' is not malicious, at least not in a specific sense.
'He' apparently limits 'himself' to poltergeist like things, basic silliness like the slamming of doors, or making things fall, or whatever. ('poltergeist' is actually German for 'mischievous spirit'). I think if there is indeed anything in this place, it's either demonic or merely pscyhological, not a 'ghost' as popularly conceived. By implication, if it is demonic, it means that regardless of its specific activiities here, it is evil by it allegiance with Satan against God.
Once again, what do all of you think?
Does your worldview even permit these things to be anything more than 'in my head'? Do you agree with my basic notions of what happens to humans after death? Do you agree with my ideas about non-human spiritual beings? If you disagree, does the historic Christian faith permit the existence of ghosts proper? If so, what is to be our response to them?
So, it's 2am, and I'm here at my new place of employment. To put it quite simply, 'here' is a home for abused and neglected children called "Health and Educational Services." It smells like pee here right now because the torrential rains that lashed New England last week flooded the bottom floor of the establishment, and they had to rip out the carpets to stave off mold. Unfortunately, whatever happened in the time between the coming of the Floodwaters-of-God's-Judgment Upon-the-Unrestrained-Evil-That-Is-Massachussets and the removal of the offending carpet left the place smelling rather like a truckstop mens room. The word on the street is that the new carpet will remedy all things. It's almost eschatological. The job I am 'training' for is basically an overnight watchman/janitor. I just learned the janitorial part...not exactly rocket science, and it only takes about 40 minutes. Other than that little flurry of activity, the other 90% of my job will be staying awake, and making sure the kids stay in their rooms, and tending to them if they have any legitimate needs. Apparently, these overnight shifts are pretty low intensity. That's putting it mildly. Other than the cleaning duties, I can read/study, surf the net, and basically screw off while getting compensated handsomely. It will pay more than Starbucks, give me more hours, give me plenty of time to study on the clock, benefits, two weeks of paid vacation per year guaranteed, and a load of paid official holidays. Now for the two downsides: First, as I already pointed out, it will be an overnight shift: from 11pm to 9am, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings. Of course, this means a significantly disrupted sleep schedule on these days, which I will hopefuly be able to more or less 'reset' on Sundays by staying up and going to bed at a regular hour on Sunday evening, rather than sleeping a portion of the daylights hours (as I will have to on Friday and Saturday). Now for other downside: The building we are located in is haunted by the apparition of a young child. Yup, thats right people, a good ole' fashioned New England we-burn-people-at-the-stake-and-other-crazy-shit haunting.
Great...
Apparently, whatever 'he' is, 'he' isn't particularly malicious, and 'he' doesn't appear to anyone directly, only out of the corner of ones eye, or by causing various sorts of mischief like slamming doors, unseasonal temperature variations from room to room upstairs, or by just giving you an incredible case of the willies as you traverse the stairs up to the kitchen and bathrooms. My 'office' is downstairs. My 40-minute per night cleaning duties are upstairs. "He" never appears downstairs, or to any of the children, (who are also securely downstairs at night). "He" only appears upstairs.
Great...
The guy that hooked me up with this opportunity is one of my current roomates, and a Christian. He told me he has only had one run-in with 'him', and that was the thrice-repeated mysterious door slamming. At that point, my roomate spoke out loud to the whatever 'it' was and rebuked in the name of Jesus Christ, told it to never appear or 'affect' him again unless it was ready to be cast out. He hasn't had much problem since, other than what can only be described as a few self-inflicted cases of 'the willies.' Tonight, in the midst of my 'training' I was left alone upstairs for several minutes. I wasn't feeling anything, no presence, no anything. Those of you that know me, know that even as a Charismatic Christian who believes in the immediacy of the spiritual world, know that I am still a bit of a skeptic. So, I hedged my bets...I stopped mopping for a minute, leaned against my mop handle, and spoke out loud (most likely to myself) and told whatever 'it' might be that I served the Living and Most High God, and that in the end, even though I wasn't that fearsome, Who I serve, was. I told it that it would be exorcised and sent packing without further ado if it tried anything with me. That being said, I went back to my mopping.
So...What do y'all think?
As orthodox Christians, we basically believe that whatever composes the spiritual/non-material aspect of a human being departs this existence upon physical death, or actually just ceases with biological death, awaiting resurrection at the end of history. This 'part' is most often referred to as the 'soul.' Moreover, we affirm the the physical body will be resurrected on the last day to biological life, and whatever the soul was doing/wherever it was, it will be reunited with the body at that point, if it was ever seperated to begin with. The Christian doctrine of the resurrection is not altogether that simple, nor would everyone agree with me on what goes on with the persons soul between death and resurrection, but thats kind of the basic nuts and bolts of a Christian notion of what happens to a person between now and the end of time, and the final resurrection of the dead. With that being said, I belive in demonic and angelic forces at work on our plane of existence. These are not dead people, they are righteous angels that enjoy fellowship with God, and fallen angels that rebelled against God at some point in the past.
But...
Apparently, this 'little guy' is not malicious, at least not in a specific sense.
'He' apparently limits 'himself' to poltergeist like things, basic silliness like the slamming of doors, or making things fall, or whatever. ('poltergeist' is actually German for 'mischievous spirit'). I think if there is indeed anything in this place, it's either demonic or merely pscyhological, not a 'ghost' as popularly conceived. By implication, if it is demonic, it means that regardless of its specific activiities here, it is evil by it allegiance with Satan against God.
Once again, what do all of you think?
Does your worldview even permit these things to be anything more than 'in my head'? Do you agree with my basic notions of what happens to humans after death? Do you agree with my ideas about non-human spiritual beings? If you disagree, does the historic Christian faith permit the existence of ghosts proper? If so, what is to be our response to them?
posted by Troy at 10:02 PM
2 Comments:
MY humble opinion;
While I agree the human soul is constrained to the body or to reserection, I feel we as the living are not privy to what goes on after death(as far as the details on how and when reserection actually occurs). My wife believes we basically go to sleep and wait for the reserection, while I believe god is the master of time and there is no reason to wait.(but who am I to say what god can and will do)
That being said, I also believe god gave to each of us the basic desire of self preservation and the ability to recognise the things that might threaten your life either physically or spiriually.
So when you get the chills or a sense of dread, I think that is the warning signs of something that means you harm.
Remember they call him the great deciever for a reason
My humble opinion
What "I think" doesn't matter, but what God says. So if my "opinion" is matching up with what He says, that's the only reason it matters at all (but is, in that case, not an opinion at all, but undeniable truth). So anyway, "I think" (and truly it is fact that) such things are demons. Many people, while physically living, are demon-possessed. When their physical body dies, the demon can no longer possess the person, so they often linger around, even oftentimes taking on the appearance and mannerisms of the person they had most recently been possessing. Demons and angels typically move faster than the speed of light, which is why we usually don't see them when they are in our realm, but they can make themselves visible to us if they so choose. That is why people see "ghosts" sometimes. All they are is a freaking demon trying really hard to freak people out, and it usually works pretty well. I have so much personal knowledge and evidence of such things. I wish people weren't so ignorant of the spirit world, which is cut-and-dry, black-and-white, objective and not at all mystical to me. If people weren't so ignorant of it, they wouldn't think things like that were weird at all and therefore couldn't be freaked out by it.
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