For the preaching of the cross is to them
that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. (1
Cor. 1:18).
A Visit to a Psychic
“Can I
help you?” my acquaintance, who was a psychic, offered, “I won’t cost you
anything. I’ve healed so many people already! I can perform surgical operations
at a distance.”
I was
intrigued, so I agreed. She began moving her hands around my body and then
said:
“I can’t.
You wear a metal object which causes an interference. Please take it off.”
“I have a
wristwatch, a safety pin, and a cross on.”
“You can
leave the wristwatch and the safety pin on but please take the cross off, it
interferes with the scan, I can’t see your internal organs…”
I refused
to take the cross off because I thought it was an illogical demand: a metal is
a metal, why is one kind worse that the other?
It took
me a while to learn why the cross “causes an interference.” A year after the
experiment, I read the following words in an article by Hegumen Ephraim titled
Corrupted by the Opium of Faithlessness:
“The
contemporary youth who have no faith and often lack the grace of the Holy
Baptism, are brainwashed to become a submissive crowd, manipulated by several
powerful sorcerers or psychics. <…> The psychics conduct the
brainwashing, i.e., induce demon possession, using secret spells, enchanted
objects, and special hand movements. <…> The cross is an obstacle for
their sorcery. It makes it hard for them to do anything bad because it attracts
God’s grace to the human and doesn’t allow demonic powers to penetrate the
human body. That is why psychics always request to take off the cross.”
Recorded by the author
Strange Wine
“I’ve
experienced something that I wouldn’t have believed if someone else had told me
about it,” one of our parishioners told me.
You know,
I visit an old lady from time to time. She is my classmates’ mother. Both her
sons (who were twins) died of hunger several years ago. They hadn’t been
married, so their mother was left completely alone. She bequeathed her
three-room apartment to her neighbors in exchange for food and care. Of course,
they don’t work too hard but they give her some food sometimes. And naturally,
they are looking forward to her death.
They
dislike the fact that I visit the old lady. They know that she’s not alone. I
told my spiritual father about this situation, and he recommended, “Be careful
or else they will kill you, too.” He never gives unreasonable advice, so I was
very surprised, although I didn’t take his warning to heart.
So, I
came to that old lady’s place on a church holiday. She picked a bottle of wine
from her cupboard and said, “Let’s remember my boys!” Well, I never refuse to
drink wine. “Okay,” I replied. Something about that bottle just didn’t feel
right to me. I made the sign of the cross on it. Imagine: the wine changed its
color in front of our very eyes! It turned muddy red."
“‘Where
did you get that bottle?’” I inquired.
“My
neighbors gave it to me long time ago. I haven’t had the chance to open it
yet,” she responded.
We didn’t
find out what kind of wine it was but we decided not to drink it. Better safe
than sorry.
I related
this story to my spiritual father later. He sees occasions like these as
normal. “It’s great that you made the sign of the cross on that bottle,” he
said.
Recorded by the author
The Ceiling
This
story happened before my own eyes. My friend asked me to be his son’s
godfather. I agreed wholeheartedly. Beka was 10 months old. He was a happy and
calm baby. His father used to say, “He doesn’t seem to feel cold or pain. He’s
going to become a true warrior!”
We had a
festive meal after the baptism, and the mother lulled Beka to sleep. Some time
later, his mother said, “I took off his christcross when changing his clothes
but I forgot to put it on again!” I rose to my feet and suggested that I put the
cross on the baby, given that I was his godfather.
I went to
the baby’s bedroom. He was fast asleep. I put the cross on his neck very
carefully but Beka woke up and started crying. His mother ran into the bedroom
and tried to calm him down. She was doing all she could to soothe him but she
couldn’t. The baby was screaming loudly. The frightened father entered the room
and took the boy into his lap. The baby didn’t want to stop crying.
He
decided to take the child to the dining room. The baby stopped crying and
smiled.
“Can you
guess what he wants?” the mother was astonished.
The
toastmaster joked, “He wants to feast with us!”
Hardly
did he finish his joke that we heard a noise that shattered the whole house. A
cloud of dust filled the bedroom. We looked inside, and it turned out that the
ceiling above Beka’s bed fell down. Huge pieces of plaster lay on his bed and
around it. The grace of the cross that we had put on his neck caused the baby
to cry and thus saved him.
Eldar Maisuradze
Published in Kviris Palitra Newspaper on May
14, 2007
Prepared by Maria Saradzhishvili
Translated
by the Catalog of Good Deeds
CONVERSATION