I wrote something about the criminal violence and occult around Santa Muerte, which is a popular narcotraficant favorite. I wanted readers to share any experiences with this phenomenon. One of you replied — which is good news because it means that the cult hasn’t affected your lives. However, the reader who responded shared a story about the demonic hauntings of a man who was close to him. Although it doesn’t include Santa Muerte this story is still important and chilling. Continue reading:
Kurt, my ex-husband had a priest from Kentucky remove demons from his upstate New York house. Now that the house has been blessed, Kurt can return to it. It is a small cabin built by his grandfather in the 1940’s. Kurt has been living there since his father passed it to him 20 years ago. It didn’t have running water at the time, but Kurt was handy and transformed it into a charming little house with two bedrooms. It is located about ten miles from Lake George, at the foot of a small mountain and close to a beautiful. Clear, flowing lake.
During the 12 years Kurt and me were together, I would often stay up with him at night. But I was half-Sicilian and, although I believe this makes me genetically predisposed to superstitious beliefs, (you should have met my grandmother), I didn’t see anything unusual up there. Kurt saw things that almost made him lose his mind while he was up there. Literally.
This happened right before COVID began, when many people were, admittedly losing their heads. Kurt was also an Emergency Room nurse, so it was safer for Kurt to stay up there during the pandemic. Kurt was alone for the last month, although a friend stayed with him the first few weeks.
Kurt called me one night and said he saw a lot shadows in his house. He said that he saw ghosts from his past and that all of them were dead. Even though Kurt scared me that night it didn’t surprise me. Unfortunately, I’d heard similar stories from him before.
Here’s some context: Kurt suffered from severe PTSD. This was due to his childhood sexual and physical abuse. Kurt once had terrible wrist pain and quit his carpentry job to get rid of it. We had it X-rayed. However, Kurt was looking strangely at the doctor when he saw the results. The doctor thought it looked like a childhood injury. He asked Kurt if he had ever injures himself as a child. Kurt recalled his father throwing Kurt to the ground at ten years of age, something he had completely forgotten until that moment.
Kurt’s PTSD was ultimately what ended our marriage. Other factors were also involved. Kurt had been abusing alcohol and drugs for the past two years. It was clear that we were both in recovery, and that we had met in the Alcoholics Anonymous rooms.
The main thing was PTSD. Sometimes, the poor man would flashback to the trauma and relive it right in front me. The shadows that he talked about that night on the telephone were always threatening the death of both of us. Kurt was and is a remarkable man with an incredible heart. I still admire him. Literally, the man taught me to love my mother even more because he loved her so deeply; he also taught me how to love all things, even little birds, in our backyard. That’s how open his heart was towards everything. Unfortunately, Kurt’s terrible, crippling PTSD made it seem like living with someone with demons. (And from what I understand whether you believe in them literally or metaphorically, they can sometimes enter people who have suffered childhood trauma).
It would be wrong to characterize our twelve-year-long relationship. Sometimes we could go almost a whole year without Kurt crashing into one of his, or’states’ as he preferred. All bets were off when he did crash. It could have been terrifying. It could be terrifying. This time, however, there was a gun involved. Rod, you once wrote a post about friends. The wife of a married couple was possibly possessed by demons. One of your commenters suggested that her husband be made a saint. That was something I read while I was tensely involved with Kurt. I thought, “Well, if this guy’s a saint, then I should be on the right hand side of the throne.”
It almost cost me my life. This is not about me being threatened with a gun. Rod, you see, I also have a heart condition. The defibrillator I had to implant a few years ago began monitoring my heart 24/7, which meant that the little amount of cardiac sarcoidosis damage I suffered initially was getting worse. My toxic codependency and my relationship with Kurt was so severe that I kept going to my cardiologist, getting scans and MRIs to see if my heart inflammation had returned. I would have been an idiot to know that my stress from my marriage was literally eating my heart out. I was so joking with my nurses that I used to joke: I’m a psychiatric nurse in an Emergency Room. But I go to work to frigging relax!
Let me quicken this: I made 911 calls on Kurt that night and was told to get an Order of Protection. I also had to sell my house and begin divorce proceedings. This was three months after COVID began, and everyone was still in quarantine. It was, without a doubt, the most difficult thing I have ever had to do. It was also much more difficult than anything I had been doing for three months. However, I was afraid Kurt would die from a drug overdose. This was the first time I felt this way, after all the futile rescue efforts I had made while we were together.
With no other options, I had to pray for Kurt. Now, when I talk about this with AA members, I always say: So, if you don’t think this codependent-mess of an recovering-Catholic wasn’t on his knees every morning under the cross, his rosary beads out and down, then you have another thought! During the year that I was without contact with Kurt, I must have said many prayers for him. I nearly ripped my knees out.
But I couldn’t stop thinking about it all the time. Kurt returned from upstate that night, and I called 911 to help him. I accidentally woke him up on our couch, while he was still sleeping on the couch. Kurt’s night terrors were something I had previously experienced, which is unfortunately very common in PTSD. Kurt had previously woken me in tears during the middle of the night when he felt his niece’s spirit move through him as she died. She was actually on life support in Nevada following a drug overdose.
Kurt stared up at me that night as I woke him from his sleep. His cheeks were flushed with crimson and he was sucking in his air with a terrible sound that almost sounded like he was suffocating. He had an expression of absolute terror that I will never forget. Later, he told me that he believed he was still upstate in his cabin and was seeing shadows from his long-dead abusers.
During the year that I was without contact with Kurt, I saw that same image every day. Kurt saw demons that night, and I knew they were going to end his life. There was nothing I could do.
I prayed and prayed and prayed for the Lord, and for 365 straight days, I think I cried every single tear. After a year, the Order of Protection had expired and we were divorced, Kurt finally called me up. I discovered that Kurt had, as I had feared and almost died from alcoholic poisoning. He was even admitted to the ICU for a week.
My prayers were answered when I discovered that Kurt had actually been sober for six more months at AA. He had also found a great trauma specialist who was helping him with his PTSD. This was a man who would run out of any psychologist, social worker, or marriage counselor I forced him to visit. Kurt was going to be confirmed in Catholicism in June, not just because he had found a Catholic parish he loved in Kentucky.
As we say in AA, there are no coincidences. Rod, this is getting too long. Let me say, however, that this experience was the catalyst for my return to Catholicism. My life as a gay person was my choice after I left the Catholic Church over 40 years ago. It was a sick joke to me that after twenty years of being an out-and proud atheist, I became an out-of control alcoholic. I was told in the AA rooms that I needed to find a God or I would die.
Through AA, I learned the truth about a merciful and all-loving God. This was something I didn’t know I knew as a Catholic schoolboy in the seventies. To be fair, this was more my problem than Catholicism’s. I believe I have been returning to my faith for many years through AA. The only thing that kept me from returning fully to my faith, to receiving the Host and going to confession again, was being married to a man. A man I love dearly and will continue to love until the end.
Rod, that’s why I can see the Hand-of God at work in all of it. This was evident the night that I finally picked up my phone to dial 911. Kurt and me had been in that house together for many years and God intervened to save our lives. And He worked through Joyce, my amazing, tough lesbian AA sponsor. Joyce was the one who made it possible for me to call 911 that night. Joyce, like most lesbians I know, also has a lot of experience and more experience than I do. It is one of the fundamental tasks anyone has to complete in order to become sober or to live life.
Therefore, I believe God saved us. Today Kurt is alive and well after a sober 18 months. He is also receiving treatment for his PTSD. Kurt even goes to church. It is a liberal church. Even flies the rainbow flag. While that wouldn’t be enough for me, it would be enough for Kurt.
However, I have always known that my damned, cold and black heart needs more help than his. Rod, I’m sorry that I continued.
Wow! I replied with gratitude to the reader. I explained to him that I know his beliefs about homosexuality. However, one thing I learned from my own experience is the importance and necessity of finding and nurturing human connections. We are all works in progress and none of us is perfect. Last night, I had dinner with a friend. We ended up having an extended conversation about our struggles, including our sins, failings, as well as how we were helped through them. Although he isn’t religious, he wants God. I shared with him the things God did for me and how Christ was still healing my brokenness. I invited him to join me at church this weekend. He was enthusiastically open to the idea. We don’t know what the future holds. It is possible to pray for Kurt and the reader who shared his story and it is possible to also hope for them. However, it shouldn’t compromise your belief in the ultimate moral order (Justice). To leaven it with mercy — that same mercy upon which all of us depend, even though we live more in line now with Justice.
The story of Kurt’s childhood abuse almost brought me to tears when I read it. You will be able to see the effects of cruelty on children over their entire lives if you live long enough. One reason the Catholic sex abuse scandal impacted me so deeply is because I felt a deep anger at the adults who cared for my children, and how they failed them. This made me feel like an adult. As I mentioned before, while I was in New York, writing about this stuff in 2001-03, I had the opportunity to meet an older gay man who was a recovering addict. Before he found sobriety and chastity, he had been extremely promiscuous. He slept almost exclusively in the presence of priests. The story began in 1960s Queens when he was a Catholic schoolboy and was raped at his school by the monsignor. His mother slapped him, and told him to never speak poorly of priests. Because she couldn’t believe what was happening, she turned him over to the abuser. It was a complete ruin to his life.
This does not justify the poor soul’s sins. Mercy was evident when he spoke about his childhood. As a sinner as I am, it was possible to feel compassion for another sinner. How much more love did and still is shown for him by his Creator? While mercy is not a negation of the importance and necessity for justice, it tempers it and teaches us to show mercy to those who are in need. This is not a metaphor. My wife filed for divorce this year without my knowledge. We had never discussed it. Because it is so clear how badly we were both affected by the events of our childhoods, which shaped us in different ways and eventually led us to this terrible and unwelcome ending, I have been able to keep my anger at bay. While I am certain that each person has their own story to blame, I also know that our failures weren’t random.
It is so hard to live a hard life. Auden said, “You will love your crooked neighbour/With your crooked hearts.” This doesn’t mean that sin — which is any deviation from God’s divine order — is not sin. Nor does it remove our responsibility to resist sin in our own lives and in the world we all manage. We are humbled by suffering, or should be. It makes us fall to our knees along with the rest of the sinners. Dante’s purgatorio is my favorite book of the Commedia. It depicts all sinners climbing the holy mountain in slow and agonizing steps — an allegory for the Christian life of progressive death to self — and helping each other along the way. While some are further along the road than others, all are moving in the same direction driven by repentance and called upon by the desire for God’s love and His love.
This is why I think this unhappy divorcing gay man has more in common than the one who was beaten to death and back by a poor person he once loved as a boy. Suffering can do that to you. Through practical experience, I have come to understand the wisdom of Christ’s command to God to give judgment. This is not a directive to reject morality — that would be absurd — but to realize that only God can know the hearts and minds of men and pass final judgment on them. In the past decade, very few people knew how much I was hurt by my husband’s disintegration. It was difficult to share it with the world. I believed that God would provide a miracle if I kept my faith. Although it is not my place, I will add that the pain my soon-to-be ex-wife went through in the marriage was real. It’s also why I don’t feel the need to resent it. It’s not that I am virtuous. It’s because I have seen how everyone — you, me, everybody — lives out the legacy of our childhoods. In the past decade, I have been open about the wonderful things I received from my family, as well as the difficult challenges I faced due to the legacy of my father. He was a loving and good man, but his flaws hurt me and others. Although I tried my best to give my children what was denied me, I can’t escape the fact that I have caused them harm that will hinder their lives. I must show my father’s mercy if I want their forgiveness. This is the only way. This is the only way to get through life without getting sucked into the pits of our youth.
Oh, no! My point is to stand for righteousness and, more importantly, to lean in mercy. My priest from back in the day said to me that I had been guilty of deep anger towards my parents for not loving me as I believed they should. (I paraphrase) Christ loves you even though you don’t love him as much as you should. Show your parents the kind of loving you depend on Jesus by showing them that same love. This doesn’t mean your parents are wrong, and it won’t make you accept any abuse. I’m telling you, however, that we all need mercy and depend on mercy. The amount of mercy we can expect to receive is dependent on how we treat those who have wronged.
That was something I didn’t understand back then. Yes, I did understand it intellectually but it was too painful for me to actually absorb it into my bones. I was able to fight my anger and resentment at the injustices in my family. I persevered in this, not out my natural goodness but out of sheer obedience. I was able be there when my father apologized to me shortly before his death. These were the words I waited for all my adult lives to hear. I was able, for the final eight to nine days of his life and as he breathed his last, to be there by his side. It was beautiful. It was a gift that I will never forget.
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One day, I might be dead and my children may need to hear me say, “I’m so sorry.” It wasn’t my intention. I beg your pardon.” It’s probably so. You should, too. My greatest struggle is to find the right balance between justice, mercy and compassion. In my youth, I was more concerned with Justice. Now, as I get older and am more affected by life, it’s more about Mercy. Too much Mercy or too much Justice can make us monsters. But there are different types of monsters. It seems that no one of us can do it perfectly right. Therefore, judge not lest you be judged. Right?
Dylann Roof, a racist and unrepentant murderer of black church members, will be executed by the state. His crimes could not be justified by anything. Nothing! Nothing! After reading the incredible storyabout Dylann Roof’s rise to power, and how it turned a young boy into a racist killer, I felt uncharacteristically moved to try to find a tiny bit of mercy in my heart for him. This does not diminish the evil he did. It does bring some compassion to him, who was defeated by hatred. We can pray for his repentance and that he will be reunited in heaven with the victims of his crimes, cleansed of sin by The Blood of the Lamb.
How can we live if we don’t have that hope?