Our current age loves demons, devils and hell…but only in horror movies! Try relating it to our everyday experiences and you are considered a bit peculiar. Sure, if we are depressed and despondent aren’t we a little physiologically out of sorts and can be fixed by a good therapist? But if God is the cause of all our content and flourishing then surely the flip side is that all discontent and despair is caused by the forces of anti-God.

I wrote a song back in 1991 describing, as many songs do, my angst at the time. Trying to be clever with the words I opened the song with the line, ‘there’s a demon demonstrating daringly in my delicate decanter!’ It was meant as a bit ‘tongue in cheek,’ but looking back on it now I realise how pertinent it has been to my life’s walk with God.

When I was at school I formed a punk rock band called ‘The Crux.’ Even then, God’s hand was upon me…or at least had eyes on me. Little did I know then that it was Latin for ‘The Cross’ (classics were not taught in my North London comprehensive)…it just sounded cool. Some of my early songs reflected some faith issues, even when I was a self confessed anarchist and atheist. This reggae themed song was penned whilst still at school…

Most of my early life was lived in ignorance of the hand of God and in effect the games which demons played upon me. The more awareness I grew into, the more I realised how daring demons actually were, and how delicate I was in response to them. In dealing with repeated sin my confessor during the Franciscan novitiate, Fr. Cassian, told me to ‘keep trying.’ This sounded so inadequate at the time as I wanted an easy answer and a quick solution. It is often a crisis that pushes us into reliance on God and this is where freedom from the demonic can be found.

In my younger days I read a book called, ‘Mr God, This is Anna.’ Anna describes to her friend Fynn a church which she calls a ‘laughing church’, where they gather and tell jokes about Old Nick, because that would really ‘crack him up.’ In one of my first jobs, my boss was the pastor of a church where they rolled about on the floor kicking their feet in the air and laughing hysterically (this was from an eye witness…I never went!) In diminishing Satan’s power, these seemed to be along the right lines, although neither really rang true to me.

When I hit my crisis I could see clearer how Satan and his demons were attacking me with unwanted and negative thoughts along with the resultant temptations to commit sin. When we become aware of our weaknesses, the temptation can be to become obsessed with our thoughts and often in giving up in our powerlessness. The trick is to start seeing it as our unavoidable battle with concupiscence, to rely on God’s extraordinary Grace and Mercy and to respond to that in prayer. The ‘pray in the Spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication,’ of Ephesians 6:18. Staying close to God at these times is our primary task. The staying calm of Moses, as God will do the fighting (Exodus 14:13-14). We need to be as St. John resting on the bosom of Jesus when Jesus identified his betrayer (John 13:23).

I developed many ‘coping’ strategies over the years…the darkness of depression I imagined as a raven perched on my shoulder in good command of my listening ear. I learned how to shoo him off to a nearby tree so that he wasn’t so close. I saw unwanted thoughts as a dirty old steam train pouring out thick black smoke as it traversed the railway line in front of my view of a beautiful, peaceful lake. Seeing those unwanted thoughts as unruly and unwanted tenants, not paying me rent and in need of eviction. I talked to God about my present circumstances as in a running commentary. All these strategies helped to varying degrees.

At first you can recognise unwanted thoughts and temptations either half way through or towards the end when they have caught hold and result in your powerlessness. Eventually when you stay on the path of prayer with Jesus, you begin to spot the unwanted thoughts when they start. Ideas and images planted there from a source that is not good, beautiful & true. It is at these times, rather than a belly laugh (which can negate the seriousness of the matter) to just have a rye smile and say, ‘there he goes again…he does like to try it on!’ Turn to God and carry on regardless. Fr. Cassian, God rest his soul, had great wisdom in his missive to ‘keep trying’…I just didn’t have ears to hear, at the time. Now when the demon is identified, I try to be as St. John

Now there was leaning on Jesus’ bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved.

John 13:23

Rest in the bosom of Jesus and be loved…that dirty old steam train will disappear.