Since we’re in a holiday spirit this month, we talked about another time I dressed up in a costume recently.
So you can see a picture of me in my cool unicorn suit later on in this post, as I illustrate – YES! CLEARLY! – why we want to push past any (potentially) annoying people in our pursuit of God.
Click here to continue reading this post.*
* This post is part of our “Say-It-Again-On-Thursdays” blogpost series, where we say it again, on Thursdays!
(No – Not your Kindergarten teacher! Someone EVEN scarier!)
So last time we talked about what parts of demonic culture we SHOULD TRY to incorporate into our lives.
So, this time, we’ll talk about – EW! GET that Satanic stuff OUT of your life, for heaven’s sake! Why the back and forth of recommendations? Well, you never know what’s true anymore on the internet so it’s essential to use our critical thinking skills at ALL times!
Constant vigilance!
(This is a Harry Potter-ism that we WANT to bring into our lives. But we’re not talking about that today. Pay attention!) Wait – you weren’t listening AGAIN? It’s okay – You didn’t miss anything (said in a whisper).
So let’s get started.
“What demonic stuff do you think we should keep OUT of our lives, Lori?” you ask with rapt attention. I’m glad you asked, friend! Let me advise you so I can feel important (Or help you – WHATEVER!).
Nope- those of you who are asleep still haven’t missed anything (whisper).
Let’s begin.
So there ARE people who stay at home concocting ways to hurt people, abuse power or manipulate with fear. And no, I’m NOT talking about your mother or Wall Street, although, come to think of it, a similar culture sometimes dominates there, too. No! I’m talking about REAL live scary people – DIFFERENT ones from the ones you already know!
Are you scared yet?
Oh, never mind setting the mood. I’ll tell you what I already know. But I can hear you asking me, “Wait – Why do YOU, Lori, the perfect caricature of Ned Flanders, have any knowledge of ALL of the REAL scary stuff that happens in the world?”
Good question.
Well, I read this book once.
It’s called Out Of the Devil’s Cauldron by John Ramirez.
The book has over 3,500 reviews and maintains its 5-star rating. That alone smacks you in the face and says, “Pay Attention!”
As well, the guy speaks in SECULAR (that means they don’t talk about religion!) schools people! Another slap up side the head. Someone who DOESN’T BELIEVE all this spiritual stuff thinks that this guy is someone kids need to learn from.
Let’s dive in.
Here’s what I learned from John’s book:
The end.
The point?
STAY AWAY FROM DABBLING IN SATANIC STUFF, people. Seriously! Get your head out of your rear end! (If you are from another culture, that statement is an English expression. No, I don’t know what it means, either! But it seems to fit here.) Or read this book, at least, before you assume you KNOW that there’s nothing behind this gross stuff.
John opens up about stuff that most people don’t usually talk about when they get involved in Satanism because if they did, they wouldn’t get invited to quite as many cocktail parties with their co-workers.
So his book is an opportunity to see the world through some different glasses – through Ned Flander’s glasses, to be precise.
You’re welcome!
Good luck!
And Happy Halloween!
Wait: Halloween isn’t happy. It’s creepy. It’s gross.
Expert advice – read: How To Steal Hallowe’en, So It’s Uplifting, Not Gros! (Shh…!)
Then listen to this song.
As you listen, ask God if there are any scary things God wants you to put in the trash.
Then do it.
Follow joy and freedom instead, friend.
Halloween is around the corner, so I thought I’d post about the last time I dressed up.
No, it wasn’t Halloween then or a holiday of any kind. Why do you ask? But this got me thinking:
What if people HAD to love us (no matter what we wore or how silly we acted)?
The good news is that depending on what your friends and family believe, they do!
For example, we homeschool our kids, so we read to them from books that say things like this:
Most of all, love each other as if your life depended on it.
Then, we go to a church where they read the same stuff.
At church, they HAVE to love us, too! If we find people who don’t love us there, we can find some others to love. We’ll all find true followers of Jesus who promise to love us no matter what our personality – even the “unusual” ones – whew!
So we can finally relax and have fun.
We’re loved!
This is good news for me in particular because I figured out what my family REALLY thought about me lately, and it was a bit of a shock.
Here’s what happened.
We were reading an excellent book together as a family.
Caveat: Before you get the wrong idea of us all drinking hot chocolate and stringing popcorn and cranberries by the fire as we each take turns reading aloud together, singing a song between each chapter, aka Little House on the Prairie style, no, it wasn’t like that. It was an audiobook played in the car during our day-long drive to visit extended family. The book just helped us not to want to kill each other.
Setting the mood.
Anyway, the book was excellent. It was called Jesus Revolution. I would highly recommend it*. We all got into the story, and even the child we initially had to bribe to listen to the story with us asked for more!
At one point in the book, the author, Greg Laurie, is described as having something like “deep spiritual depth and a bit of an unpredictable, crazy personality. You never knew what he was going to do next.”
My husband looked at me sneakily out of the corner of his eye, smirking. “WHAT???” I asked. “What are you smirking about??”
“Oh,” he replied, looking away casually, “just something said in the book.”
“What??” I protested. “I’m not…!” And then he laughed, and there was a muffled chuckle, I think, from the back seats.
So I guess my family thinks that his personality describes me!
And this reminds me of what we did last night! I bought a gift for my family – well, sort of. Okay, yes! I did buy it for myself and pretended to give it to the family!
It is called The Adventure Challenge. You scratch off an “Adventure,” and then the family HAS (Yes, teens, that word is “HAS”) to do the Adventure together. Last night, we strung out yarn as an obstacle course through the basement, and we had to go through it as fast as we could, being sprayed in the face with water each time we accidentally touched a string.
It was fun.
And my superhero outfit? Yeah, I am wearing a bathing suit over the top of my leotards. And yes, the big “S” on my shirt WAS made a spur of the moment. It helped me go faster!
I even got first place!
(Before any of the others went, I was ranked first, that is.)
So relax! Make your teens do fun and crazy stuff with you! If you’re unsure how, try making “fun” a prerequisite to “food,” for example! They’ll thank you later! (When they’re old they may thank you – At least that’s what happened to us!)
Your kids are loved, too!
And that was the message of the Jesus Revolution book, actually. It was about a bunch of crazy hippy kids who were overcome, in some cases literally, by the love of God. That love overflowed to others and transformed a nation (Even Time Magazine did a cover article about this movement on June 21, 1971).
So go ahead and be the real you, whatever that looks like.
And then, after you’ve let your stomach fat and the rest of the real you out a little bit, if you’re desperately looking for a way to improve your self-esteem, spend a few more minutes with the kind of people who believe they HAVE to love you!
You’re welcome!
Good luck!
Footnotes
*If bribing your kids to watch a movie with you is less expensive than bribing them to read a book with you, the movie Jesus Revolution can be rented here.
Last time, I wrote here and here about why we should try to give a wide berth to the dark arts and the demonic or satanic.
This week, to confuse you, I will tell you that you SHOULD read the Harry Potter series. I didn’t say I would be consistent! Give me a break! Who has time for authenticity nowadays? We’re too busy scrolling social media to have time to figure out who we are! It’s easier to follow the crowd, anyway!
And since there are gross Halloween decorations in every major department store right now, let’s talk about why you might as well read Harry Potter, too, while you’re at it.
Ahem . . .
So, several years ago, I was huddled in a corner, trying to shut out the world with its scary stuff. Children held out their Halloween candy to me once and yelled, “Boo!” and I screamed, terrified. “We have to keep ourselves CLEAR of all of that stuff!” I yelled after them as they ran away, laughing.
Actually, that memory has exactly the same point as my recent posts, come to think of it! Stay CLEAR of demonic stuff!
So today, let’s run as far as we can in the opposite direction. What satanic stuff SHOULD we be holding onto and perhaps even incorporating INTO our lives?
Ha!
I bet you don’t hear that question every day! You’re welcome! Good luck!
Now let’s get started as we dig a bit deeper to unearth some insights so that we can travel on our spiritual paths free of BOTH:
We’re talking about Point #2 today, so that’s why we’re discussing which demonic stuff we want to incorporate into our lives.
Let’s start with Harry Potter. The books crawl with spider webs and warlocks, abuse of power, and fear-filled followers of evil (I.e., scary Death Eaters).
Surely, this stuff is a NO-GO! We must confidently assert.
Not so fast.
The Harry Potter series helped me to more deeply emotionally resonate with the choice Jesus Christ made to hang on a cross so we could be free.
What now? You’re wondering.
Yup. Here. Hold my popcorn because I need my hands to explain (I’m Italian).
Harry Potter discovered a prophecy that said he needed to die so that his world could be free of evil (I.e., the guy Voldemort). Harry’s struggle with what this sacrifice would cost him personally and what it would mean for everyone else’s freedom in his world was a palpable decision he struggled with that made my hands sweat, quite literally. The point is, the fact of Jesus CHOOSING to undergo such intense pain SO THAT I could be set free came home in a new way to me as I stayed up into the wee hours of the night with a flashlight trying to figure out how the story ends.
The Harry Potter series ends with freedom for everyone in his world because he CHOOSES to sacrifice his one life for them.
Exactly like in our world.
One look at him and people turned away.
We looked down on him, thought he was scum.
But the fact is, it was our pains he carried—
our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us.
. . . God has piled all our sins, everything we’ve done wrong,
on him, on him.
Can I have my popcorn back? I want to see how this movie ends.
Our movie here on earth, that is, with OUR actors, us.
Great literature must treat evil, sometimes in a base and repulsive form . . . as do the Christian Scriptures.
Three Faces of Evil: Christian Writers and the Portrayal of Moral Evil by Susan Wise Bauer in The Christian Imagination
Footnotes
*Wait – Isn’t that the goal of our spiritual lives? Dang! Now I’m confused again!
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
He was trained and expected to emerge as a teen rock idol.
Then, he died in a sudden air crash at a young age. Over 40 years later, his music is still popular, resonating deeply with our hearts*. And he had shaggy hair, a groomed beard and bell bottoms, so we know we can trust him!
(I’m a closet Hippie, too. How can you tell? One of my teachers didn’t seem to know my real name and called me “Hippie Chick” for four years of high school.)
And that’s how you can know you can trust me, too, because therefore, I MUST be cool, too!
And now that I have established my authority as someone who is MORE COOL than you, I’m sure you will be waiting in anticipation for my next words!
Ahem . . .
You MIGHT want to stop worshipping Satan.
This suggestion is just an idea. See this post for the beginnings of this argument. Now, before you SLAM your laptop closed in indignation, asserting to me, “I would NEVER do that, Loser!” can I have your ear for two minutes so we can challenge each other for a moment?
There has been an alarming increase in people visiting exorcists in the last several years. An exorcist is someone “who expels or attempts to expel a supposed evil spirit from a person or place”. For example, as mentioned here, over the last several years both the Catholic and Protestant churches have noted an alarming increase in the number of reported demonic possessions.
People are more frequently looking for hope in the dark arts.
Why is this?
The musician mentioned earlier, Keith Green, gives us a hint in the lyrics of his song “No One Believes In Me Anymore (Satan’s Boast)”
I’m drawing people just like flies ‘cause they like what they hear
Keith Green said (and we can trust him, as noted above because of his nice hair – remember?) that we are looking for hope in the wrong places.
Also, his words align with those who are intimate with these sorts of issues.
For example, in The Exorcist Files, which is among the top podcasts overall on Apple, Father Carlos Martins explains that many seeking hope turn to Spiritists etc. because they desperately want something. Power, unusual strength, knowledge of the future, or sometimes things as joyful as the hope of having a baby drive people to open the door to satanic practices.
This deep hope is also called worship.
Worship is where we show “reverence” or “deep respect.” It’s where we turn to for hope for our spiritual, emotional or physical ailments. We dabble. We dip. We sacrifice just a bit.
We toss a coin in the wishing well of the dark arts, hoping our wish comes true. And what emerges from this innocent hope is sometimes a dark shape that is much stronger than we anticipated.
And then we need help.
And so many more are returning to the church, but not as we expected. Not as congregants wondering if worship on Sunday will offer their soul’s peace, but as those seeking to be rid of the dark art’s hold on them. Bummer.
It’s better to steer clear of that stuff.
I’m just suggesting.
My opinion.
Photo by KOBU Agency on Unsplash
My job is getting easier because no one believes in me anymore
Keith Green – No One Believes In Me Anymore (Satan’s Boast)
And so, the two forgotten reasons we should stop giving Satanism our hope?
More on that next time.
God, we pray you give us the wisdom to steer clear of and open our eyes to any dangers of Satanism.
To learn from real people who have been set free from demonic possession, consider listening to The Exorcist Files. Stories are based on the real experiences of Father Carlos Martins.
If we want to feel scared at Hallowe’en, we might as well fear REAL stuff!
You’re welcome!
Good luck!
As the song below plays, ask God, “Am I seeking hope in the wrong direction? Where can true hope be found to help me with my very real problems?” Consider chatting openly about your thoughts with one who is trying to walk in the footsteps of Jesus.
God is love . . . There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear.
Footnotes
*The music of Keith Green still comforts over 175,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, for example.
Photo by Kinga Howard on Unsplash
Yeah, so I might have had a slight touch of fear now and then over my lifetime.
OK, let’s admit it. Fear is paralyzing me, my constant friend.
Jesus walks over to me, crouches in the corner next to me, and offers me His arm. It is time to stand. I rise on quaking legs.
Click here to continue reading this post.*
* This post is part of our “Say-It-Again-On-Friday” blogpost series, where we say it again, on Fridays!
So, I’ve been reading about becoming a successful and influential online figure that others look up to and admire.
Did I mention that yet?
Yesterday, I learned that we need to establish AUTHORITY that we KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON before we boss others around. “So THAT’S what I have been doing wrong!” I realized, slapping my head with this newfound wisdom. So today, I will ASSERT my AUTHORITY and EXPERTISE in the following sentence before I advise you:
I WAS VOTED ONE OF THE BEST DRESSED PEOPLE (!!) IN MY SMALL RED-NECKED HIGH SCHOOL SEVERAL DECADES AGO!!
And so, because of this obvious flair for fashion, you can now wholly trust me as I tell you about the cultural fashion trends I am currently observing!
As I sat in the new Mexican taco place last week, I was scratching my head and puzzling over the décor.
Why was this place decorated with skeletons and skulls?
The previous month, in another restaurant, when the 20-year-old kind waitress turned, her forearm flashed a skull tattoo. She didn’t look or sound like a terrifying “Hell’s Angel” motorbike member, cussing and starting fights. Or whatever scary biker guys do – I don’t happen to have any good friends who are active Hell’s Angels members, come to think of it!
Actually, there is one scary-looking biker guy who attends our church, but his heart is so kind and full of a desire to love like Jesus that I forgot he’s frightening.
Anyway, this young waitress had a kind smile and a genuine desire to see us be well served.
She just happened also to like skull tattoos. “Why did she like a skull tattoo so much that she wanted it engraved into her arm, never to come off?” I wondered, scratching my head, trying to figure out this new fad.
Now, as proven here I am a very cool person, and with only a BIT of imagination, I am even CLOSE to attainting the title of “Cool Surfer Dude!” At least, this is the case in my imagination. (Now – What is my editor yelling at me again for anyway? – And something about “Authenticity”? She’s a bother!)
We can all define ourselves the way we want, and I am definitely cool.
Anyway, since I am, as proven above, so VERY cool, you’ll want to sit down and listen to me when I talk about tattoo fashion trends and current decoration styles in the public space.
The only problem is, with this ONE vogue trend of demonic fashion decor, I have absolutely NO idea what is going on. (I’m SURE there are NO other cultural fashion trends for which I am confused – Rest assured!)
The point of this post?
We’ve tossed the church as the source of a beautiful gate leading to God’s heart. The gate has cobwebs, and the path beyond it seems dark and foreboding. We have added stuff to Christ’s message so that The Way isn’t as brightly lit, especially in contrast to other paths that flash their bright neon lights and claim The Way to God. And so, people are gently turned away from the beautiful gate by the cultural forces of progress. “Travel here,” the dark shapes seduce us.
“Life comes from death”, they whisper, stroking our heads to keep us calm, like a parent to a small child.
It is true that life comes from death.
Unless a grain of wheat is . . . dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over.
Jesus Christ, the guy 1/3 of the world claims to follow
We sense hints of the divine in the symbol of the life of a flower emerging from the skull of symbolic death, so we blindly walk in that direction.
And so, we allow ourselves to be steered down a path of partial truth, which has always been the path to the most destructive of lies.
There is a profound truth within this metaphor, but blindly embracing all demonic symbolism is a path leading in the wrong direction.
Wake up, friends!
Let the bathwater of unhealthy Christian culture wake you as we toss it in a panic. Ah! Let’s throw out everything that doesn’t reflect the love Jesus showed us as He washed His friends’ feet and hung on a cross! Let’s toss the dirty bathwater of some parts of Christian culture! And may many wake up by this water splashed in their faces as we toss it, friends.
But let’s keep the baby.
A virgin will get pregnant and bear a son; They will name him Immanuel (. . .for “God is with us”)
Let’s polish that beautiful gate and allow Christ to transform our hearts so they are bright enough, full enough of selfless love that our hearts on fire light the way for others to see the path to God, too.
But let’s stop turning to demons, friends, to show us the path to God.
Let’s worship God instead!
The reasons why we may want to worship a beautiful God who wants to set us free in joy instead of foul demons that will eventually devour us will be discussed in the next couple of posts!
You’re welcome!
Good luck!
So I went to church the other day.
A kind fellow welcomed me by taking off his hat and bowing to me. Then he slapped me upside the head and told me that I had to believe a political ideology as well before they would welcome me into their church.
They’ll make a show of religion but behind the scenes they’re animals. Stay clear of these people.
I left the church and got into that church through another entrance because I knew how to look for another door. But many of you don’t. Many of you turn away, saddened, looking for another path to God.
“That path is not in the church,” many of us assert.
Have we replaced our primary sense of belonging . . .to [Jesus] . . . with politics…?
So we stay home the following Sunday and watch TV or ask questions online, wondering, “Where is God?” Our hearts are stirred at night as God tries to wake us from spiritual slumber. We hear stories and wonder, “Maybe?” and then we are again distracted by our lunch and phone notifications.
But our hearts are a black hole that attracts the supernatural, often against our will or our reason.
Let’s dig deep down in our hearts today, friends, and see what we find deposited there in the depths. Like a vacuum attracting dust and debris, cultural beliefs swirl around in our hearts and sometimes settle there even though these ideas are simply filth, cluttering our minds. Instead, we need to find thoughts and questions that are food to fuel our spiritual journeys.
What we find often surprises us when we dig deep, deep down, hitting the depths of the heart.
Here’s some everyday clutter that we dig up and can inspect from all angles before DECIDING, with our MINDS, whether these ideas should be treasured in the depths of our hearts or thrown far, far away into the night, never to wake us again with their mischievous badgering. Sometimes, the wrong thoughts keep us awake at night. What do we toss, and what do we hold onto of the musings deep in our hearts, friend?
Here are several ideas:
Why?
A counterfeit Jesus, counterfeit rules, and counterfeit beliefs POINT TO THE TRUTH THAT SOMEWHERE OUT THERE, THERE IS “THE REAL” OF EACH OF THESE THINGS.
No one counterfeits items that hold no value.
The fact that someone bothered to counterfeit these items hints at the truth that the accurate, authentic, valuable versions are out there somewhere.
Don’t turn away from your path to God just because someone slapped you upside the head a bit.
Find the other entrance.
Photo by Marco Aurélio Conde on Unsplash
*(Boring) Administrative Announcement: Hello! I sent this same post from my Substack yesterday. However, I have recently realized that some prefer reading posts here on WordPress instead of Substack. ALL FUTURE POSTS WILL BE SENT FROM WORDPRESS unless I hear otherwise from you. Thank you so much for supporting me so I can feel important!
I prefer whining, usually.
It’s less risky.
Plus, it’s safer on my ego to point the finger and deride others than to realize that we’re the ones who’ve accidentally fallen on our rears.
My example:
Hear us whine:
“Hallowe’en is a lot more disgusting than it used to be in years past, etc,” we said. And so we bury our mouths in tubs of candy, fix our eyes on the latest movie, close our ears to the kids knocking upstairs, and hide in our basements, waiting for November, when all is right once more with the world. (Isn’t it? But I digress. . . )
Hoisting oneself by the seat of the pants and leaving the house:
So we asked the grocery store manager to please remove the DISGUSTING display of realistic, cut-off body parts sitting on top of the oranges. These were their “decorations” during October. “Yes! Of course!” she exclaimed, running off to remove them before we finished speaking.
And then came another fall on my rear with the following sentence from this store manager, “You are the first person who has said anything about these decorations in ten years.”
Ouch. Doing the mental math as I sat on my rear after the fall, I quickly realized I had shopped in that store for that long. I have complained every year and yet never once spoke out in love.
And the store manager?
She wasn’t a fierce wolf waiting to attack the foundations of excellence in our culture. But she was a confused sheep, head in her hands, crying, waiting for someone to shine a light on a mess in her store that she couldn’t quite see but knew intuitively needed cleaning up. She had longed for someone to give her a reason to take down the decorations that the rising tide of culture had deposited in her store.
The other thing is – I didn’t create an enemy in this store manager but the reverse happened.
She opened up to me about her cancer struggle and her search for God. Years later, during COVID-19, when the sign at the grocery store exit said in bold letters, “WE WILL NOT HELP YOU CARRY ITEMS TO YOUR CAR”, I didn’t ask for this service, but she carried items to my car. We shared some love in the way that strangers do when they talk about God together (This is another post).
But the point?
Maybe it’s time to grow up a little?
Nah.
I’ve got a bag of candy I’m enjoying tonight (Yes, sugar is a poison – what is your point?), as I watch another episode, and whining is easier, frankly.
But as my joints become enflamed from all this candy, and my spiritual life shrinks with me as I hide in the corners of my culture and complain, I wonder if I should get up off the couch, again?
Photo by Julian Bock on Unsplash
How about you?
Should we help each other put down our candy and get up?
Nah.
Oh OK! I’ll tell you about the next time I do something like this in another post. Now leave me alone so I can finish my candy and movie, ok?
(Thanks.)
“What is she going on about now,” you ask each other.
Change is in the air! Fall has arrived, and I’m moving to a different website. I’ll explain next week.
You don’t have to do anything, but there will be no posts again this week.
(You can stop crying now).
See you next week!
Happy fall and first day of school, homeschoolers (and others)!
Remember homeschooling parents – Your brain is still bigger than theirs! For now, anyway! Use every advantage you’ve got!
Good luck!
You’re welcome!
Restoring Life 