Introduction: I had a medical exam today as part of being a soldier. Had all my bloodwork examined recently; went through optometry and audiology, too. A familiar regimen to us military types. But when the nurse was talking with me today after she took my blood pressure and I was waiting for the physician’s assistant to come in and listen to my heart, the nurse shared with me that she was a committed reader. She showed me the new Kindle from which she reads regularly. She was so proud of it as she retrieved it from the side of her scrubs. It had a cover on it like the composition books we used to use in writing courses when I was young. I asked her a few questions, as she was so friendly.

     “So, what types of books do you read?”

     “I like dystopian stuff, apocalyptic stuff, especially the paranormal. I’m in a series that has seventy-five volumes, and I’m in volume seventy-two,” she said.

     “Seventy-five volumes? Wow!”

We went on like that for a while. I listened as she recorded my vitals and made notes in my medical records. And she told me of her fascination with those types of reading and how enthralled she was with it all. I could not offer much in terms of relating to it all. But it got me thinking about things I notice more and more nowadays. Specifically, we are awash in all-things-dystopian/apocalyptic/demonic.

More examples: I met with the physician’s assistant, and he listened to my heartbeat and made me inhale and exhale deeply, as the medical types invariably tell us to do, and he told me of my good and bad cholesterol levels, etc. And afterwards I called my wife to give her a kind of update on my health, and all that kind of thing. And I drove later to the gym to get in some PT on the treadmill and the weights. I listened to Dave Matthews and the Doobie Brothers and the Zac Brown Band on my playlist and watched the other soldiers in the gym while I jogged on the treadmill.

I was the only one I could see who was not tattooed. Most soldiers were covered in them. Many of the white soldiers were so tattooed that their skin was no longer white but blue, black, and green with ink. The patterns were often of serpents and swords or of blood or perhaps a phrase of Latin related to courage, sacrifice, strength, victory, and/or death. Several tattoos involved some variation of a cross. And I remembered the nurse from earlier and her fascination with dystopian/apocalyptic literature—replete with spiritual questions about invisible forces and the way warfare is manifested.

After I worked out, I went to the latrine to wash up some and towel off, so that I could go grab a bite to eat later on. On the way towards the door, I passed a soldier. I was raised not to stare at people, because that is impolite, as most would agree. But when I passed the soldier, he/she was “in transition” and covered with ink. I could not tell if it was a man trying to look like a woman, or if it was a woman trying to appear as a man. He/she had characteristics of both—broad shoulders like men, but a thin neck and cheekbones and a pretty face and skin like a woman.

And it hit me again: dystopia/apocalyptic/paranormal stuff; tattoos of spiritual warfare and symbolism; and physical surgeries that transfigure men and women into misshapen creatures contrary to the way they were born. There was a recurring theme. And, quite frankly, it affected me spiritually.

Direction: I tend to mull things over until I get a firm idea of what I think is true about them. For me, that comes by writing. I don’t really know what I think until I can write it clearly. Writing has a way of concretizing the abstract. And as I was studying later in the day and working on my lesson for class Sunday at church, I was in Matthew’s gospel, and I was studying the passages where Jesus casts out demons:

And as they were going away, behold, a demon-oppressed man who was mute was brought to him. And when the demon had been cast out, the mute man spoke. And the crowds marveled, saying, “Never was anything like this seen in Israel.” But the Pharisees said, “He cast out demons by the prince of demons.” (Matthew 9:32-34 ESV)

And then in Matthew 15, a Canaanite woman begged Jesus to heal her daughter of the demon oppressing her:

And behold a Canaanite woman from that region came out and was crying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David; my daughter is severely oppressed by a demon. (Matthew 15:22 ESV)

Just thinking: I got back to my place later and was about to continue studying and writing and preparing. And a recommendation came up on a list of movies I might be interested in. It was titled Cabinet of Curiosities. And can you guess what it is about? Seances, Satan, demons, and spiritual warfare.

I continued to try and think through what all I had seen in just one day—at the doctor’s office for my physical health assessment (PHA), at the gym and its sea of tattoos of daggers and serpents and soldiers whose gender I could not discern, and of how so much Scripture is filled with illustrations of demon oppression, possession, and spiritual warfare, and of how even the realms of darkness are under the feet of Christ.

Then I could not even escape this theme when I was on my computer, because Netflix was suggesting to me that I watch a series about seances, Satan, and spiritual warfare. At the very least, I would say that there is a spirit of warfare that is overt in our day, but you must have eyes to see it. And it is painful, at least to me, when we do see it.

Because if we are tender to it, our hearts will break for those bending their knees to the darkness. I don’t want that for myself, for my loved ones, or for much of anyone. I know that may sound like the sentiments of a schoolboy, of as of someone naïve or saccharine. But it is true. The darkness spoken of so often in Scripture (Ephesians 6:10-13, etc.) is real; it is spiritual and visceral, and it is not to be taken lightly.