I received a very interesting phone call from a caregiver of an elderly woman in our congregation the other day. She explained to me that the past few nights, one of the other caregivers had seen a ghost in the woman's apartment! At first, she wasn't scared of it, but then there was a black "entity" that "felt evil" that flew through the apartment, and she became concerned. So the next day, I got this phone call, and the person simply told me, "I didn't know what else to do, so I wanted to call the minister!" Well, this was certainly a new one for me! I'll admit that I love those shows on ghosts and the people who tell their stories of hauntings, etc. But I don't know if I'm a believer in such things. I do think that people have experiences that we should not discredit, and perhaps there are people who are more in tune with the other worldly, spirits beyond death, etc. And honestly, I thought it was kind of funny.
So I agreed to come for a visit the next day (I needed to plan a visit with this parishoner anyway) and in the midst of the visit, I told the caregiver I would do a house blessing for them. I turned to the ever handy "pastor's pocket edition" of the Book of Worship and found exactly what I was looking for. The next day, the pastoral intern and I paid her a visit and did the house blessing, which went over well.
Will there be anymore ghost sightings? Who knows...only time will tell!
3 comments:
Strange. I'm dealing with a similar situation right now. It's not a member of the church & I'm consulting with a friend of mine on the situation. They don't teach these things in seminary!
I had someone ask me to do an exorcism on them once. I had no idea how to respond, so I offered to do a "remembering their baptism" ceremony. That way, there would be holy water involved. She seemed to be okay with that suggestion.
Try not to get slimed or set anything on fire!
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