My Walk Through the Valley of Baka, Part II: Living With the Enemy

The following is the first part of a slightly edited report which I submitted to the authorities at the temporary housing facility. It is a documentation of the ongoing and very strange behavior of my first roommate, Elena Compton (not her real name). It may seem a bit dry, but I hope to give readers yet another idea of the spiritual warfare that went on at my former residence. And I did not document everything she did—for instance, I left out descriptions of the obvious markers of the occult which she left in the room.

 I’m certain that this woman was a plant from the Dark Powers and Principalities. Bright side: 1) if the Enemy felt the need to plant such a person so close to me, I must be one of God’s. 2) This document resulted in me getting what I wanted: a room change. My subsequent roommates were good ladies.

Nonetheless, I’m glad to be away from that place.

Oh yes and Language Alert!

My Walk Through the Valley of Baka, Part I

I made the same reference in the last post; it's from Psalm 84. Baka (בָּכָא) means 'weeping' and the operative preposition is 'through.' I didn't do much weeping, but you get the idea. This has been on my mind for the last few months as I watched the behavior of many people at the homeless housing. And it's interesting that my sojourn in homelessness occurred in the San Fernando Valley.

Almost on a daily basis, I read or listen to Christian commentators. Many of them discuss eschatology or break down scripture. But one topic has interested me: missionary work in Third World countries. Oh, I don't feel lead to do it, but I find a consistent observation fascinating: that the evil side of the supernatural is often more undisguised and overt in African, Central American, South American, Middle Eastern and Asian countries than in the USA and Europe, due to the prevalence of non-Christian and/or occult practices in many of these places. Observers have also said that this often makes prospective new converts in these places more open to God's supernatural manifestations than is so in the First World.

We "sophisticated" Westerners--even Christians--tend to scoff at the otherworldly. But what are incidents like this, this and this (ad infinitum), but supernatural manifestations? Jesus healed demoniacs; and I bet that, if those demoniacs had lived in the 21st century, they'd be posting manifestos against God and everyone on social media before they went out in a blaze (pun intended) of glory--or before the Son of Man had mercy on them.

But I saw nothing so horrendous. However, I saw things that my previously sheltered state rendered me powerless to explain using "rational" means. Was the homeless facility in which I lived a portal for the Enemy? I'm sure it was; it was an aggregation of fear and hopelessness, which is what the Enemy is selling. That much I know.

Day after day, I could sense the evil working in the homeless facility, as I mentioned in the last post. Occasionally, I would allow those feelings to affect me, but it was never for very long. Prayer, reading the Bible and regularly attending church would push those feelings back. But it was a constant effort. (One of my prayers is that I don't let up now that the attacks are not as overt.) I'd say that I wasn't all that successful, as my writer's block might indicate.

And a few times, I got to see the works of the Enemy up close.Let's talk about a guy named Dean.

Dean,* a Navy veteran, was slim, had long brown hair and blue, glassy eyes. He walked around the courtyard of the facility in full ramble mode. If one actually listened, it sounded like gibberish--usually. And, usually, it involved Jesus. Dean's main theme: that he, himself was Jesus.

I heard of one supernatural incident in which he was the star and saw one myself.

I was sitting on one of the benches in the smoking area having a conversation with someone else and Dean was behind me, babbling. The facility appears to have once been a hotel. The smoking area is a small, area in the corner of the courtyard. It's boxed off by planters which are separated by wooden benches and in the planters are trees in various stages of growth. (Interesting aside: if one sits under the trees, it feels as if it's raining; the trees "weep.")

Dean had an odd habit of pulling the leaves off of the trees and tossing them randomly. But, this time, he was pulling them off and tossing them on my back. I cut off my conversation, turned to him and said, "stop that." I was looking him directly in the eyes.

Suddenly his glassy stare cleared and he responded.

"Get off my land. Go back to your husband." I felt a chill go down my back. I could only think to rebuke him in the name of Jesus the Christ and that's what I did. On the mention of Christ's name, Dean stalked away from me.

The second incident involving Dean is second-hand, but, to me, it's more jarring.

Two other residents of the facility--Rodney and Janice--got to see what I'm about to relay. Neither person is particularly religious (though, after the following incident, Rodney began attending church with me for a time).

The two watched as Dean climbed up on one of the planters described, babbling as usual about Jesus. Then Dean put up his arms in Crucifix fashion and began to exclaim: "I'm Jesus, I'm Jesus!"

"Get the f*** down from there," Rodney said, and, just as he finished speaking, both Rodney and Janice say that they felt an unnatural wind blow between them and Dean; so strong that it pushed the former two back. They saw the wind hit Dean directly, knocking him off the planter, and onto the ground--on his backside.

The word in Hebrew for 'spirit' is ruah (רוּחַ). It is also the word for 'wind.' The Holy Spirit smacked Dean.

Weeks later, Dean ended up getting kicked out of the facility for violence against security and, for months, he hung around on the perimeter of the place--as did several others who had been ejected for various offenses. (Just as I was about to leave, he was allowed back in, as were several other similarly afflicted persons who had been kicked out. And I could feel the level of spiritual chaos rising.)

There are a few other things that happened while I was there, and I will write about them.

*All names are pseudonyms.

Alone Again

My stint in temporary homeless housing is over. And it was a blessing. But those of us who are familiar with how God operates know that blessings don't always feel good; and many times this one did not.

What I discovered in my personal Valley of Baka was how good I've had it nearly all of my life--and how good I still have it. I've been hesitant to say the following about my former residence, but I can't hold it in any longer: it is a portal for the Enemy, for Satan.

And why wouldn't it be? Many people there had been there for years, or had multiple stints of homelessness. Additionally, not only was it a hub of drug usage, but drug sales. I can't prove it and I don't want to do so. But I heard and I saw.

Of course marijuana usage is prevalent there. It's legal here in California and all one needs is a "rec," provided by an on-site doctor at the various weed shops around town. Before my homeless stint, I had nothing against weed smokers. I had known some before and they were pretty regular people--actually a bit calmer and more fun than most. But there's something about the equation of weed and homelessness: it seems to produce obsession. Many of the weed smokers at the shelter stayed high night and day. One could get up in the morning and smell that odor coming out of someone's room. (Allegedly, no smoking was allowed in the rooms. Like almost all other rules at this facility, this rule was spottily enforced, however.) Another proof of obsession: this was all some people talked about: what kind gave the best high, which store had the best deals. Talk about boring conversation!

Other things are used by the residents, however--things I'd barely known about before my arrival: "spice" and meth. And all too many people would sell their prescription medications. (There are a lot of Department of Mental Health clients.) Through these pharmakeia, I got to see zombies. Yes, that's what they were. The worst thing: watching the descent of someone who had been relatively normal.

Hopelessness, drug usage, fights, theft...and cold-heartedness. I observed/experienced all those things. And through these opened doors, I got to see the evil side of the supernatural without its usual cloak. Needless to say, I put on the Whole Armor of God everyday, but I could still feel the harsh, coldness that permeated the place--the unchecked fear. And I wasn't the only one who felt it--symbolized by the perennial knot in the pit of my intestines that is only now going away since I moved into this apartment on the 17th.

My New Living Room

And it is only now that I am able to write.

So I am grateful to God for the opening of my eyes and for the physical and spiritual sustenance while in my own little taste of pseudo-Hell.  Of course, I'm never alone. He's here.

It's a Trap--Reboot

I will be to intermittently featuring old posts from my political blog, baldilocks, and from my Christian blog, Turn not to the Right Hand nor to the Left. As I said in the last post,  the old baldilocks site is still available to the public, but TNTTRHNTTL is not; I only have it on my hard drive.

Before, I thought it was best to separate my Christian faith walk into another blog site, but I have changed my mind. The fact that Jesus is my Lord and my Savior is integral in my offline life, and so it shall be online.

The original version of this post was offered at TNTTRHNTTL on November 7, 2010. This version is edited yet again and has a couple of additional paragraphs. During the time in which I composed the old version, I was trying to free myself from a very toxic relationship and what follows below are concepts which I knew in my head to be true. However, it took a little while after that for these things to be cemented into my heart.

*****

Recently, a friend mentioned the concept of being “caught up”--being “in love”—that which is defined as Eros, "passionate love in the narrow sphere of sexual desire and longing."   Since that conversation, I have been thinking about how we sometimes call ourselves being “in love” with another and how such relationships almost always fail when one or both parties fall out of "love."

Much of what we call being “in love” is, in reality, delusional selfishness if the other two types of love--agape and phileo--are not shared between the two parties.  Minus friendship and, most importantly, minus the desire for growth in the Holy Spirit for one’s beloved, Eros is mere fantasy and when that fantasy fades in the face of reality and you find that you really don’t like the other person and you really don’t care whether that person lives or dies—or whether that person will have to experience the Second Death, the relationship ends.

It seems to me that when a relationship is based solely on Eros, two people aren’t really having a relationship with each other.  On the contrary, each individual is having a relationship with himself or herself.  

At first, neither person wants to see the “beloved” with characteristics apart from those which personal fantasy projects; and we certainly know the definition of projection: “the attribution of one's own ideas, feelings, or attitudes to other people or to objects.”  He is relating to his fantasies—most likely sexual—and projecting them onto her.  She is relating to her fantasies—most likely emotional and/or status-related—and projecting them onto him.  Initially, neither person sees the other as a separate individual with needs and wants of their own.  One might as well masturbate.

Inevitably, fantasy gives way to reality and the “beloved” turns out to be a real person who is different than our fantasy man/woman.  And when fantasy has been disabused, it can sometimes get ugly.  As I said to my friend, when we discover that the person is different than our fantasies—when we discover that the other person is a real person rather than our self-created phantom--we often get angry at that person for not being what our fantasy is or we keep trying to make that person into our fantasy.  

Both are losing propositions.

The Bible calls this “vain imagination” and it is necessary to my point to give the definition of the adjective ‘vain:’ “having no real value : idle, worthless .”  Additionally, the pertinent definition of the noun ‘vanity’ is useful:  “inflated pride in oneself or one's appearance : conceit.”  (Emphasis mine.)

It always seems to come back to pride, doesn’t it?

I once heard someone liken an intimate relation between a man and woman--read: marriage--to a properly baked cake with icing. The relationship is the cake with proper ingredients--spiritual love and a fully-formed friendship--and sex is the icing.

An insufficiently baked cake will taste awful and will melt the icing. And icing with no cake tastes sweet--at first. But after a short period of time, one becomes sick of it.

At any rate, this concept of being “in love” seem to be an inversion of one of Jesus Christ’s two greatest commandments: to love one’s neighbor as one loves oneself.  If you know that you have needs, wants and desires, you can be sure that others who you may claim to love have them as well—and you can be sure that many of those needs, wants and desires are different from your own.

Therefore, if you are using another person to gratify your own personal desires--physical or otherwise--regardless of his/her own and when your desires have been sated, you walk away, you are committing a grave sin, almost an act of hatred.  You are treating that person as an animal or a thing and not as a sentient being.  And the irony of this is, the person to whom you are doing the greatest harm is yourself—your own soul.  Repeatedly hurting others and being hurt in this manner builds up deafness to the Word of God and to the Holy Spirit contained in the hearing thereof—it produces fear rather than faith and we all know the origin of fear.

We see this pattern over and over again in so-called love relationships—using others to gratify oneself or to promote self in the eyes of other human beings.  People who are familiar with the biblical proscription of sex outside of marriage but don't want to follow it seem to think that God is trying to keep us from having fun.  But, personal experience and observation should tell us otherwise—that God prescribes this standard to keep us from hurting each other and hurting ourselves.

And, the “fun” waiting to be had can be so much richer and fulfilling when one cherishes the person having that fun also—when one loves and likes the real person’s spirit and soul rather than relating to the phantom in one's own head. 

I've experienced this only once.

I pray I will again.