By John Warren

 

I do not go to scary movies.

It is not because they scare me. It is because I find them hokey.

I went to the movie Hereditary with family. The main character in the movie turned out to be a devil worshiper and they inherited this distinction from their grandmother who had been some kind of devil queen.

I love animals. The only animal I have a problem with alive is snakes. I prefer them dead.

That said, when I was a teen my best friend Jeff, owned a cat. I had just met Jeff and his family and had gone over to their house to watch Saturday Night Live.

Think back to SNL with Chevy Chase and Gilda Radner, in those days the whole family got together to watch together and eat chocolate chip cookies or whatever else Jeff’s mother would make for us. His was a big Italian family.

As we gathered in the den and watched the show, I kept hearing someone make a clicking noise like you do with your tongue against the roof of your mouth. So finally, I asked my friend “Who is making that clicking noise?”

Everyone laughed when I asked and replied “It’s the cat!”

Sure enough it was. When Jeff and his twin were boys, they put the vacuum cleaner hose to the cats face and turned on the vacuum cleaner. The suction effected her vocal cords and ever since she clicks instead of meowing.

Click click, click click.

So in this horror movie the ghost of a girl would enter the room she would make that same clicking sound the cat made.

The only problem is the effect it had on me.

While everyone else was spooked by it, I thought it was funny.

So I would respond by clicking back.

My wife who is superstitious says “the holy man” that’s me “attracts ghosts”. If I do, they don’t scare me.

And this is why; I believe in a higher power who is greater and walks with me every day wherever I go. My God is an awesome God, he reigns not some crummy ghost. We live by faith not by fear.

We confirm and claim the words of Paul to the Romans found in Romans 8:35-39 “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress, or persecution or famine, or nakedness or peril or word? No! (and not just no, but NO!) In all things, that is ALL things, we are more than conquerors through the One who loved us. We are sure that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor ANYTHING ELSE in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Thanks be to God! Amen.”

Click, click.

 

John Warren is Senior Pastor at First United Methodist Church, 502 North 6^th Street in Orange.