ghosts and the like

I work in a café/coffee shop owned by an Irishman. It’s pretty amazing sometimes. My favorite thing about this job is that I get to meet really interesting people every day, and constantly learn more about the acquaintances I already know. The shop is pretty quiet during weekday afternoons, so there’s ample time for conversation.

Today was especially slow, but I got to have one mind-blowing chat. Not an hour into my shift, a man came in who plays music with my boss. When I first started working there in August, this guy I’ll call Michael came in all the time, but has become scarce since he got himself a lady friend a couple months back. Michael’s a kind man in his late fifties; his humble demeanor is accentuated by the baseball cap and tinted glasses he always wears, which give him this mysterious air.

He gets his usual sandwich and sits down at the high table across from the counter, and we catch up a little. Then my boss leaves, and the conversation somehow shifts from the mundane to the profound. Michael launches into a crazy story—and imagine this being told in the most matter-of-fact way by a typical, Midwestern guy:

“My aunt passed away last week. And I have no idea why these things happen to me, but I woke up that night in the middle of the night. I tossed and turned for about an hour and couldn’t go back to sleep. Then I turned over, and I saw her there. She seemed so happy…”

Michael recounted other times when he had seen dead people, seven or eight times, he said. One was his father. Another he saw two months after her death, in a field or a yard near where she had lived. When he told his relatives where he had seen her, they dug into the soil and found some trinkets and photos buried there!

As I listened to all of this, I found myself responding calmly, while freaking out inside. On one hand, I mostly believe all of this. We’ve had other conversations about his spiritual life, and this man walks more in the supernatural than most people I know. He has a legitimate relationship with God that is surprisingly Biblical in spite of the fact that he has admittedly never read the Bible.

Yet… what the heck? We’re talking ghosts here, man! I don’t know what to think about that! What makes a person able to see the dead—whether a natural, chemical phenomenon or something certifiably not of this world? And if it’s not of this world, from which side does that come? It’s so bizarre to me.

I guess, though, that at the end of the day it doesn’t really matter. I love this guy. I pray that he will continue to know the Lord in all His fullness, and all His love for him.