Pastor’s Keyboard: Recently, a friend told me he was suffering from Demon Brain. I said to him, “What’s Demon Brain”? He told me that he was spending so much time reading blogs, watching the news, and using other forms of media that it was becoming an obsession. Most of what he was taking about was the evil that is happing, the disunity in our country and Church. He realized that while he still needed to know what was happening in the world, he was spending more and more time looking at the works of Satan then the work of God.

So, what is Demon Brain? It’s when we become consumed by the evil we encounter, talk about or read about. The symptoms of Demon Brain:

• One is becoming more and more angry and having less and less of God’s peace.
• Our conversation is dominated more by the evil we observe then the good that is present.
• The desire to see bad happen to a particular person or group of people starts to grow; the desire for revenge.
• A hopelessness starts to take hold of the mind and the heart.

These are some of the symptoms of Demon Brain. Again, I am not advocating mere avoidance of the news and living in a happy world that does not really exist. We must always see the problems, even evil itself, in the context of the reality of the presence of love and mercy and hope of the living God who is Emmanuel, “God with Us”. Then we can see but not swallow the evil. We can understand but not be taken in by the evil. We can name it and not claim it.  For “the Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear!”.

The more we are grounded in Jesus and His presence and promises, the more we can stand our ground against evil, and not only see it and name it, but fight it! First by our ever-increasing growth in relationship with the Lord and His church, then trust, hope and faith will grow and the light in us will shine brightly before all. Be not afraid, be grounded in the Lord and don’t let Demon Brain effect your life.

Your brother and father in Christ,

Fr Scott