You can say what you want, "The Exorcist" is the scariest damn movie ever made.
Forget about "The Shining", "Halloween", "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre." "The Silence of the Lambs," and even "Jaws" ... they're not as scary.If you've never seen it, or don't believe in the Devil (who happens to be the star of the movie though he never makes an appearance) ... it's so easy to watch it on your television or phone tonight ... and I'll do my best to stay up and take your call when you can't sleep and need someone to assure you everything's gonna be alright.
This is what Billy Graham said about "The Exorcist."
"There is a power of evil in the film," the world's greatest televangelist said, "in the fabric of the film itself."
Oh man! If you can scare Billy Graham, you can scare anybody!
It's based on the true story of two Jesuit Priests in St. Louis performing an Exorcism on 12 year old Ronald Hunkeler, who's bed shakes as he yells obscenities in a guttural voice unlike his own, with markings on his body spelling words and urinating on the service.
That's scary enough but the movie takes it to a different level with turning heads, green vomit, the sexual use of a Crucifix and ... the deaths of the two Priests ... one beaten by Satan ... and the other ... well ... may have killed a Demon with himself.
Let me tell you, when I held my girlfriend that night ... thoughts of teenage sex were not involved.
I was a religious kids growing up, a crazy combination of Southern Baptist and rock-n-roll, mini-skirts and Church youth camps, sexual revolution and teenage hormones ... Richard Nixon in the Oval office and a poster of Raquel Welch on my bedroom wall.
I was doomed to be easy pickings for Satan.
"The Exorcist" just let me know how serious it all was.
By the time I got to Seminary I had lots of questions about exorcism.
Unfortunately the Professors weren't interested in answering any of them because they're indoctrinating me with anti-sex, anti-gay, anti-dancing, anti-drinking, anti-tobacco, anti-women ... pretty much they're against everything.
I even learned it's a sin to put amaretto in cake!!
It wasn't long before the only thing I cared about excommunicating myself from was them!
So, I hired a woman to be the Associate Pastor at our Church ... got heavily involved in helping people with AIDS ... was quoted in the paper saying "Homosexual the most Christian person I know" ... chewed tobacco ... drank rum-and-coke in Hebrew class (it greatly helps pronunciation) ... kid-napped a woman professor once ... had a lot of sex and ... put amaretto in the cake.
In no time at all they excommunicated themselves from my life.
I didn't have to do anything except ... be myself.
{Okay, I can't tell that true story without telling this one ... a few years later, the Baptists call to ask if I'll attend one of their conventions and give a speech titled, "A Baptist's Response to AIDS."
"What you asking me?" I ask.
"Well," he hemmed, "you are Baptist and ... you have one."
HAHAHA ... nobody every said Baptists aren't funny!}
Through the years though I've learned about excommunication ... and it's nowhere near as bad as I thought.
The other day, Sarah and I are fighting through conversation like all people in love sometimes do ... when we got married she brought baggage and I brought baggage ... and none of our baggage matches ... and sometimes we have to point that out ... and it's one of those times.
She brings up my past and I bring up hers and I say, "You know, there have been some bad people in my life who did bad things to me ... even when I was trying to love them ... especially when I was doing my best to love them."
She stops and gives me the intense concentration only she does through crazy aqua-blue eyes.
"I can name my Demons," I softly continue and name them."
Sarah nods because she knows.
"Whenever they pop into my head," I continue, "I excommunicate them."
They were friends, co-workers and a wife ... and each hurt me horribly.
If you've seen "The Exorcist", read the book or actually been to an excommunication ... it's not easy to do.
The big scene in "The Exorcist" is the ... exorcism.
Oh man, it is scary stuff!
Demons don't easily leave.
Their mark stays on you.
I can show you their scars ... they're all right here ... on my heart.
Of course if you ever talk to my Demons, they'll likely explain that I'm the evil one.
That's what makes excommunication so damn hard.
Sometimes you're not really certain who the Demon is.
You can never really come to terms with the fact that you did everything you knew how to do, in the best ways you knew at the time, to show them how much you loved them.
Demons, though, are not about love.
They're anti-love ... kinda like the Baptists.
So not matter what ... it's your fault.
But, here's how excommunication works.
If you know in your heart you gave it your very best ... loved as much as you were capable at the time ... carried them when they couldn't, or wouldn't, carry you ... kindness was taken advantage of and your love you gave them was rejected.
You have to let them go.
Keeping them and the memories of failure, hurt and rejection eat away at the time, energy and love needed to live fully in the present.
You cast them out of your life.
If it makes you feel better you can do it with a prayer they'll learn to accept love without manipulating it ... a wish of good luck or the hope good karma replaces the bad.
But that's really for you more than it is for them.
You can also say, "God bless their tiny little black hearts" and give 'em right back to Satan himself.
Whichever works.
The important thing is to get bad people out of your life and replace them with good ones.
And you don't have to be nice about it either. Take off your flip-flops and shake their dust from your being ... is how Jesus put it.
It's not as easy as it seems because you never really get over or forget the hurt they inflicted on you ... and they're good at visiting in night time dreams, day light memories or silly reminders.
Sarah seems to understand when I tell her, "I'm excommunicating them," and Lord knows she's the biggest reason my life has, and is, continuing to move on in new and better directions.
A few moments later, I kiss her cheek.
The movie ends with the once Demon possessed girl is leaving for a new place to live when she passes a Priest and is moved to kiss him on the cheek.
She has no memory of the Demon who'd possessed her but something of the two Priests who gave their lives so that she could live again is now part of who she's become.
The final step of exorcism is showing love for who loves you while deliberately walking away from those who don't ... and never looking back.
