I once lived with the dead; alive, but dead to all that lived.

My own family rejected me, but I don’t blame them.

You see, the scars on my wrists and ankles are proof

That I was a threat to others. No, no one else is to blame for these.

I did this to myself. I lived in caves used for tombs

And I used rocks – jagged or smooth, it did not matter – to hammer

My limbs.

I used to shriek day and night, restless, roaming the hills, cursing

Heaven, or hell, or myself.

My family, hopeless but terrified, tried to bind me, constrain me,

But no man or men could hold me. They used rope, but I ripped it.

They tried chains, but I tore them apart. They tried shackles, but I shattered them.

Unable to restrain myself, nothing could contain me.

That’s when they drove me to the tombs.

I cursed my family for abandoning me.

I cursed God for making me.

I cursed myself for being me.

No chains could bind me but I was bound. So I gashed my ankles and wrists,

Desiring release. Darkness overtook me. That night lasted forever,

Or so it seemed, until

I met him.

The moment I saw him I ran to him, unwilling but compelled,

And I dropped to my knees.

I heard myself shouting but it wasn’t my voice. The voice

Called him “Jesus, Son of the Most High,”

And wailed, begging to be left alone. I heard him, Jesus, say,

“Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” The voice cried for permission

To enter a herd of pigs nearby. With a voice that shook me

Like the trumpets that toppled Jericho

Jesus said,

“Go!”

A force pushed me backward. I fell down.

My head hit the hard ground beneath me. I raised my head, my eyes cleared,

And I saw the pigs. Hundreds and hundreds of squealing,

Wriggling pigs. They ran toward the sea like an avalanche,

Trampling over each other, wading into the water. They drowned.

I turned my eyes from the sea to the man standing over me.

He was smiling.

He asked some men who were with him (I hadn’t seen them till now)

To get me some clothes. I didn’t know I was naked.

They started piling into their boat, and I implored him to let me

Stay with him. Instead he said,

“Go to your home, and to your people and tell them what the Lord

Has done for you, that He had mercy on you.”

He left.

I feel the weight of that day every morning,

Every time the sun rises to warm my face.

Implied in the word “Go!” was the invitation “Come!”

I wanted to be by his side forever. I knew in an instant that that

Smiling face,

That face of mercy and authority, of kindness and raw power,

Of grace and knowledge was

My only hope.

Only he could rid me of my demons. Only he could rescue me from myself.

You see, though I was truly helpless against the demons,

I was not always so. The spirits did not seek me;

I invited them in.

I wanted power. I craved authority.

I yearned for influence. And I believed it was the darker,

Hidden and unspoken powers that would deliver.

Instead of gaining power over others I became powerless,

Able only to destroy myself, my family, my people.

So when Jesus expelled the demons he did not say he rescued me,

as if a storm threw me from a boat, as someone who was helpless.

He showed me mercy.

In uttering that one word I felt the weight of all my greed,

All my compulsion, my dark search

For dark power.

My rebellion.

Mercy.

I relish the taste of the word

On my lips.