Walk with the Devil

Book excerpt: I was profoundly touched by evil at the dawn of my life and have been haunted by the experience throughout most of my life. My mother was poisoned before my eyes at about age four; I grew up on that that fateful day and became aware of myself. I was touched by evil and the wickedness of man against man at the dawn of my life. She died an agonizing and horrible death. The room I shared with her smelled like rotten fl esh or putrefi ed meat before her death. But the last time I saw her on earth she looked radiant and was miraculously transformed when I saw her seated in the village square for public viewing. She was at peace, the lines and marks of pain and anguish etched on her face as she lay dying were smoothed out. Her countenance was peaceful devoid of the expressions of agony and pains the hallmark of the last three to four months of her life. She was beautiful in death than during the last months of her life; death gave her peace. I did not know it but I was affected or infl uenced by the events of my mother s last days on earth. I do not fear death and whenever I came close to death I was more concerned about the inconvenience my death would have imposed on others than fear for my life. Death is not a bogey man. About a year after her death I encountered malicious spirits in the bush. I did not know the spirits were not human but I was apprehensive and fearful at the sight of little people under the fruit tree on which I sat. The spirits chased me from the bush to the village; during the chase the earth opened up and swallowed me for my protection. And not to be outdone the spirits followed me into the bowels of the earth. That was the second time in my young life that I was touched by evil of a different kind; I nearly died from the encounter with the malicious spirits. I was reunited with a father I did not know I had before my mother s death. But about three years after I was reunited with him he walked out on my new family; my stepmother and her children. Thus by age seven or eight I had gone through two broken homes. First, my mother walked out on my father when I was a baby and second my father walked out on my new mother and half siblings. For most of my life I was haunted by forces of darkness, malevolent spirits and scary nightmares from time to time. Scary and haunting nightmares led me to discover the power of prayer very early in life. I started praying before going to bed when I was in class three and the nightly nightmares ceased until I was a young adult and went to St. John Bosco s College. I discovered alcohol and began ignoring and skipping my nightly prayers or prayed haphazardly without heart and the nightmares came back. I was hospitalized about fi ve times in one year from the effects of a nightmare and vision when I was a student at the University of Science & Technology, Kumasi... Divided by Faith United by Love My father was a tolerant Muslim; he did not foist his faith on the rest of the family. My stepmother followed no particular faith or organized religion until the last days of her life. She was animist; she worshipped our ancestral spirits and deities. I became a Catholic or Christian by virtue of education, my father made no attempt to convert me to Islam. The family while together was united by love not by faith; each member followed his/her own faith. I could not reconcile my new faith with my parents and realized that but for love we would not have known peace in our family. We are divided by faith but united by love that was the experience from my upbringing. My lack of blind faith is infl uenced by my upbringing. Man as God and Satan. I understand the meaning of some popular bible passages different from most because of my experience of the forces of darkness, my struggle in life against evil, witchcraft and malicious spirits. I understand the true meaning of the passage in Luke 17-20-21 ------For indeed the kingdom of God is within you . And the adm