Episode Seventy-Eight: The Interview-Micah Burgess

Micah talks dreams in this episode. Hear how a terrifying set of dreams set him off on a course he never imagined-and? How those dreams bled into his waking life-turning on lights both in his room, and in his head.

Transcript

Welcome to Episode 78 of Bite-Sized Blessings.

I've got a fun announcement this week.

I'm not sure how many listeners are listening all the way to the end of the episode,

But every once in a while I end the episode after the credits with a little Easter egg.

And this episode is no exception.

So for the theology nerds out there,

You might like the very very end of this episode.

There's a little treat there right after the credits.

In this episode I get to interview a friend,

Micah Burgess,

And to say that he's just a husband and a father would be very reductionist.

He's also one of the kindest and most thoughtful people I know.

My friend Sparks,

One of the former guests on the podcast,

Died recently and because he was homeless he didn't have any money left for a burial or a coffin.

Everything that you need to end your life with dignity in this country.

I mentioned the fact that we didn't have a coffin and Micah was the first person.

He just stepped forward and he said,

I will do it.

And he did.

So when I say that Micah is kind and thoughtful and willing to do whatever it takes to make this world better for others,

That's a little bit of an understatement.

I do have to say that there is a trigger warning with this episode and it's a different kind of trigger warning this time.

If you are sensitive at all to the idea of demons or demonic presences or the fact that these entities might exist in this plane or travel from wherever they might exist,

This episode might be triggering for you.

Micah and I do discuss what his dreams might have meant instead of actual demon visitation,

But I did want to put it out there that if you're sensitive to this kind of subject,

Please take care.

Don't listen if it's gonna upset you.

Please take care of yourself.

So now,

Episode 78 of Bite-Sized Blessings.

And they were weird and scary and I to this day have never been more freaked out as that period in my life that season.

I had a series or a season of dreams that I would describe as demonic.

They were terrifying.

I was engaged at the time,

Preparing to be married and I started having these dreams that I thought were real life even after I woke up.

Could not shake it,

Like it was it just stuck with me and I couldn't stop thinking about it.

I was scared even in the daylight,

Scared to go to bed,

Didn't want to go to bed because I knew I would just jump right back in.

Right now,

I would say that I am the husband and father.

I would say that I am spiritual and not religious but spiritual for sure.

That I am a piece of this massive puzzle called life,

The thing that we're all experiencing.

You know,

I'm one thread in the canvas and I'm okay with that.

I think that we all have a part to play.

Now,

I don't know if I would say that I believe that everything happens for a reason and we don't have any freedom of choice or anything like that but I do think that I do have a part to play and I do matter.

So you sum all of that up and do a big ball that's messy and complex and that's me.

I've always said that because there's always that argument between between free will and fate,

Fated events and free will.

I've always thought it's not either or,

It's both and.

So I've always felt that we're expected or we should show up for certain events in our lives or in other people's lives.

Like we're fated to show up for those things but in between we have free will and we can do whatever we like.

So that's just what I think and I think it speaks to your idea that you just were talking about that you have a part to play.

So some part of your life you must feel is fated,

Is that true?

Oh yeah,

Multiple times in my life I've looked back and gone,

I could not have made that happen on my own.

That had to have been faked.

You know,

In certain parts of my life I would have said God's plan.

Yeah,

But God is the term that I use.

I grew up and was raised Southern Evangelical.

The church that I was a part of was non-denominational,

Quote unquote,

Which became a denomination very quickly of conservative Christians.

I don't really feel like I need to describe or define that too much,

We all know.

We've seen the mega churches,

That was us,

Right?

My parents were very conservative.

I wasn't allowed to have girlfriends until I was 16 and later on into being 16 even,

Like,

I had to ask permission to hold my girlfriend's hand when I was 17 and did not do that well.

I was really rebellious my whole life and in trouble a lot.

I was grounded all the time.

For some reason I did stick with it though,

I went on to do what we would have called short-term mission work in Africa for four months and then I worked for a ministry here in New Mexico for five or six years,

But then I reached a point where it all felt very arbitrary and made up and I really mean all of it.

In the evangelical tradition,

Jesus is the Son of God,

You know,

In our minds,

There's no question about that,

But that even was brought into question in my life.

Fairly recently,

Not that long ago,

I would say just a few years ago,

It was like,

None of this means anything.

This was all made up and was only made up to control people,

To keep people in line and to have nice,

Because humans love nice clean lungs,

Right?

Like,

We love black and white.

So I left the church and I've not gone back to church since then,

But there is this thing festering in me recently,

More recently,

And it might be that raising a daughter,

It could be any number of things,

But something in me for some reason is drawing me back,

Not to conservative Christianity,

But to Jesus.

I don't know why.

And it may just be that that's the language that I use,

That's the language I was given to describe the spiritual aspect of life.

But Jesus was pretty cool,

You know,

Like looking back at the things that Jesus did,

Fighting for the people on the fringe that no one wanted to have anything to do with,

Forgiving people radically,

And stepping in when people were going to be punished by the spiritual leaders of his day.

All he did was turn,

You know,

Turn the tables.

And what we thought we knew,

We didn't know anymore.

And Jesus,

When Jesus came.

So I love that aspect.

Again,

It's very akin to my spirit to be that rebellious,

To step into the spiritual power of the culture and say,

No,

You thought it was this,

You've heard this,

But I'm telling you this.

And that's really cool,

And it's kind of drawing me back.

Again,

I'll probably never go back to a conservative Christian church,

But there is this aspect of Jesus that I'm very attracted to.

When I was in seminary,

It was intriguing for me to learn that the early earliest churches,

And they found some recently,

Archaeological findings,

Were house churches.

And people would just go to someone's house,

And it was a sweet community.

They got together once a week,

Maybe twice a week,

Who knows at this point,

And shared community,

Connection.

And you don't get better connection and conviviality and community than just going to someone's house and sharing a meal and getting to deeply know those who were there.

I think with those connections,

Great healing can happen.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

And if you're looking to fill your building,

What better way to do that than to scare people into thinking that they're going to go to hell for their decisions.

Yeah,

And that's like a major roadblock for me,

From keeping me from going back to,

You know,

I don't want to just sit here and crap on church,

But I do think it's important that I talk about the reasons that I'm not a part of it anymore.

I don't believe in hell as a place that you go to after you die.

I do think there's hell on earth,

And we oftentimes choose selfishness and pridefulness,

And we end up nashing teeth,

Which is what Jesus talked about when he talked about hell,

Right?

We oftentimes choose hell,

And oftentimes that means we choose ourselves over others and end up in a hellish place because of that.

I've always thought that hell's here on earth.

Hell is literally every day because if you think about it,

Our souls came from someplace.

One would like to think it's the godhead or whatever that universal source is,

And being a wave in our bodies is separation from that source.

And that in itself is a kind of hell because you're no longer in that beautiful abundant energy you've been put into this material plane.

So that's already hell.

But then the way we hurt each other,

The way we attack each other,

The way we talk past each other,

The way we can't listen.

I mean,

We're creating hell all around us constantly.

And so I agree with you,

Hell is here and we're creating it.

We're actively creating it,

Which then should be inspirational because that means we can create heaven here too.

And that's exciting.

I also think heaven's creating heaven's harder work.

Oh yeah,

It is.

You were talking about the dreams you were having.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

Why are you laughing now?

Oh my god.

Oh no,

I'm laughing because they're a trip.

And they were weird and scary and I to this day have never been more freaked out as that period in my life,

That season.

I had a series or a season of dreams that I would describe as demonic.

They were terrifying.

I was engaged at the time,

Preparing to be married.

And I started having these dreams that I thought were real life.

Even after I woke up,

Could not shake it.

Like it was,

It just stuck with me and I couldn't stop thinking about it.

I was scared even in the daylight,

Scared to go to bed.

Didn't want to go to bed because I knew I would just jump right back in.

The first dream,

I was in the house that I grew up in and I was walking down the street.

You know how dreams jump back and forth from real time,

So bear with me.

But then my wife,

We were married,

We had a kid with us.

We were asked to house it for our neighbors down the street at,

Again,

In the neighborhood I grew up in.

They walked in,

They showed us the house,

They talked about the dogs and how to take care of everything.

We put our backs down and I was about to get in the shower.

And all of a sudden,

Three voices,

All at the same time,

Whispered into my ear and all the lights went out.

And I was like,

What was that?

And they whispered,

Where is your God now?

I was like,

Whoa.

I freaked out,

Flipped the lights back on and off.

And Corinne heard me freaking out and she opens the door so light enters the room from where she was.

And she's like,

What's going on?

And I was like,

Corinne,

I need you to get out of here.

I have to deal with something.

And I closed the door behind her.

But the light stayed in the room.

And then these voices from all around just start tormenting me and embarrassing me and insulting me and all this weird,

Crazy stuff.

And the light starts shrinking down to my feet,

Kind of in a circle.

And the circle is getting smaller until it gets just to my feet.

And I screamed out in the dream,

Jesus help me,

Because that's what I knew to say.

I don't know.

And that voice screamed brutally loud into my ears.

All of the lights went white.

And light bulbs started popping and I wake up and all of the lights in my room are on and they slowly turn off and dim until it's back to the normal setting in my room.

And I cannot move.

I'm like shaking,

Terrified.

I could tell that I had been breathing really hard and was trying to catch my breath again,

But I was frozen.

And then the last thing that happened was that this voice said my name.

And it said,

Micah,

I know who you are and I know where to find you.

And then it went away.

And I was like,

What happened?

What was that?

And I worked at the golf course at the time and I had to wake up at like three thirty in the morning to go to work at four and worked until noon.

And then generally took a nap and then went on with my day.

That was the first dream.

And it stuck with me.

I'm like processing for days afterwards.

And then the next dream occurs.

And the next dream,

I'm still engaged.

We're not married yet.

I fall asleep.

I am at the church that my parents started.

And they started small and in a school building.

So we're in this big,

Giant school building.

And for some reason,

There's this random chandelier that's hanging.

And it's important later,

But it was there and I don't know why,

Because it's a school.

But there's a chandelier.

And I see this person that I worked with in Africa and I'm so excited to see them.

And they are massively pregnant,

Like about to pop pregnant.

And I'm so stoked to see them.

I'm like,

Whoa,

I didn't know you were pregnant.

And they're like,

Yeah,

It just kind of happened.

It was weird.

But I look into their eyes and their eyes are completely black.

They're like their irises had taken over everything in their eyeballs.

It was very creepy.

But I just kind of kept going.

And there all of their responses weren't there was no joy.

It was all and this person is the most joyful person you will ever meet.

But they start talking in that voice.

And that's every answer they give me is in that voice.

So I'm like,

Hey,

How have you been?

How are things in Africa?

They're not great.

Things have happened,

You know,

And it's this like three or four voices in one talking to me.

And I'm just going along with it.

I'm not really thinking about it at the time.

And then I ask a question that I guess triggered this thing inside of her and she grabs me by the throat and throws me up into the chandelier and is holding me in the chandelier.

And the same thing happens.

She said,

Where is your God now?

And all the lights go out.

And then I'm like,

Everyone's trying to help and grab me off the chandelier and pull her away from me.

And then I look down and her stomach is freaking out like something is inside of it.

Finally,

I'm like,

I know it's you.

And I yell at everyone and I'm like,

Get out.

I need to handle this on my own.

This is not yours to handle.

So everyone's like,

Well,

OK.

And they leave and run away.

And I pray because that's all I knew what to do.

And she screams again and the lights pop and I wake up and the lights are on again in my room.

But this time I have to go and turn the lights off in my room.

But my experience was that this thing turned the lights on in my room and I had to go turn them off.

So then I'm talking to my parents about it and I'm talking to pastors at the church about it,

Meeting with them,

With my fiance.

People are praying over me.

And a few months later,

I'm married.

We are on our honeymoon and in the hotel room.

And the third dream occurs.

And there is a ship out away from the dock at this lake that we used to visit when I was a kid.

And me and my wife are there and the ship is sinking and there's children on it.

And I'm freaking out.

OK,

Everybody,

You know,

Call 911.

I'm going to go out there and see if I can start bringing kids back to the dock.

So I'm swimming out there.

They find a paddle boat.

So my family paddles out there and I'm handing kids off to the people on the boat.

Then I go inside of the boat and I'm calling around.

And again,

It's filling with water.

So water is like up to my knees.

Calling out anybody else here.

And there's this figure in the corner that's shaped like an old woman with long,

Drabby hair.

Clearly not the woman that would have been with these children,

I don't think.

But I was thinking the best.

And I was like,

Hey,

I'll help you out.

Come,

You know,

Can you come to me or do I need to get over to you?

And she says,

Where is your God now?

In those three voices again,

I froze and there wasn't anything I could do.

And this is where the sleep paralysis got really real.

She grabs me by the throat and shoved me into the water.

And I can't move.

I can't scream out.

Nothing.

I wake up just at the point that I was about to die because I couldn't scream or pray because I'm underwater.

I wake up and I'm choking and it felt like something was holding me by the throat.

And I can't catch my breath or breathe for what felt like a long time.

And Corinne,

I'm awake.

Corinne is holding me by the arms,

Shaking me.

My wife is shaking me,

Asking me to wake up.

And I'm awake,

But I can't do anything.

It got to a really uncomfortable point where I thought I was going to die until I was finally able to breathe and the spell or whatever lifted.

And there weren't any marks on my throat or anything like that.

That was definitely the scariest of them all because I was being,

You know,

Choked while I was awake by something that was happening in my dreams.

That's the end of that series of dreams.

I still to this day don't know what to think of it.

And I've talked to a lot of people,

Spiritual leaders and pastors,

And all of their answers are very cliche.

Oh,

Well,

I've talked to this person and they experienced a similar sleep paralysis.

And then it turns out they were just eating cheese before they went to bed.

Or they were possessed by demons.

And,

You know,

We prayed for them and then the demons left and they stopped having these dreams and seeking help felt worthless to me.

What I did get from these dreams was that I needed to separate my spirit from the church,

Quote unquote,

And make my spirituality my own.

You know,

Every single person you're going to ever talk to,

Depending on what lens they're seeing through,

Is going to give you some different answer.

For me,

That woman especially just reminds me of that specter in the Goya painting,

The nightmare.

Have you seen that image?

And she's creeping over.

It's like this universal archetype of,

I don't know,

Of a night terror or a female hag creeping in and having their way with you or tormenting you.

And it sounds to me that you were tormented.

I mean,

I don't know how soon or before this you were starting to question or having some ideas that maybe the church or conservative Christianity was not for you.

But it's almost like something came into your dreams to wake you up and say,

Where is your God now?

Because that to me seems like the central question.

And it's like,

Is your God this white man who's like in the clouds?

Or is your God everywhere all around you?

In that tree,

In that rock,

In that chair over there,

In every single human being around you,

In the dog that's being walked down the street.

That's such a powerful question.

It is.

Absolutely.

And I'm really grateful that I started to ask that question for myself and start searching for answers.

I have a much deeper understanding,

Even of the Christian faith or practice that I did before that question was asked.

So I'm grateful in that way.

I kind of wish that it didn't have to be that way.

I don't.

But maybe it didn't.

And it just took that for me.

Well,

I do think it's fascinating that two things.

I think it's fascinating that the lights were on and they slowly dimmed after that first.

Because you can't really explain that.

Is there such a thing of you being in such a powerful dream that you're affecting the lights around you?

That story inside the dream is translating out into the world.

Right.

So that it's,

You know,

But the second thing I wanted to say was,

What's fascinating about the dreams is it's almost like your body,

Your physical self,

And your mind.

You know,

The story making mind were with each other in those dreams.

And so you're having these really confrontational and very terrifying interactions with kind of archetypal demons,

Quote unquote.

Yeah.

And what's the message?

And maybe your body's,

You know,

So used to growing up.

I mean,

I'm just,

I'm one of those people I'm seeing through a lens and I'm telling you.

Oh,

I'm grateful for it.

I'm grateful for it.

So maybe your body is just,

The body's a repository of our memories,

Our stories,

Our messages.

You know,

What we've grown up with are traumas.

And here's this new message coming in.

And it's like,

Who is your God?

It's trying to wake you up.

And your body that has been you your entire life,

But has had its story your entire life about conservative Christianity is like,

This makes me uncomfortable.

And I don't like it.

Right.

It just sounds so,

Those dreams sound so powerful and so terrifying.

Yeah.

It's like something was trying to,

Was wrestling inside of you.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And I had just gotten back from Africa,

Where I had encountered,

You know,

People who we would have described as possessed.

I was definitely open to how the spiritual world can interact with our physical worlds.

And had kind of just opened back and it works,

Months before I started having these dreams.

So at the time I was like,

Oh my gosh,

I got,

I got bit.

Like,

I interacted with these demons in Africa and then they followed me home.

They did.

Yeah.

I absolutely,

I was just about to say that.

I was just about to say,

I wonder if you caught the attention of some spirit or something malevolent.

And it was like,

I'm gonna hang out with him for a while.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

You know,

And torment him.

I would love to hear the story of what happened in Africa.

Yeah.

There were these school girls that slithered around like snakes and they were not allowed back at school.

We saw them on the side of the room,

Slithering and acting very demonic.

It was,

It was like textbook,

You read about demons and how they interact with humans.

And that's like what we saw.

And you,

You got coming again.

It was kind of like in Harry Potter,

When they talk about the,

The dementors,

All the joy leaves the space and you're just filled with nothing but fear.

So we prayed over them.

I don't know what happened,

But they were back in school within a month and their parents were eternally grateful.

And this is the thing.

I really don't like the Christian savior complex.

I don't view myself as the hero in that story,

Again,

Because months later I was dealing with demon possession on my own,

You know,

And in a way and fighting,

Fighting my demons,

Fighting those demons later on,

Maybe.

Yeah.

I mean,

Again,

It was fresh off of those experiences where I was interacting with the spirit,

The spirit world on a daily basis.

We were praying,

We were,

You know,

Worshiping and we were doing all these things.

And I mean,

It was a constant thought in my mind was what am I going to do for the Lord today?

Every day I woke up,

Played my guitar,

Sang some worship songs and then went on to work for the Lord for four months in Africa.

And then I came home,

Started having these dreams right away.

I was also shot at in Africa.

Shot at?

Yeah.

There's a lot of petty theft.

People would come and steal our tires off our cars and anything left out,

Bikes missing all the time.

Because poverty does things to people.

Right?

So I don't even blame the people who shot at me,

But I went outside because the dogs were barking,

Noticed that there were people running off into the woods with some of our stuff.

Called a couple of people to come help me and we go and we stand on this rock just to make sure that they stay with.

And then I hear things whizzing past my head and then I hear gunfire.

Like,

Whoosh,

Boom,

Whoosh,

Boom.

It was insane.

It was insane.

To be living in Africa for four months is where I transitioned from being a boy into a man.

Something happens when you encounter death that closely that makes you just not afraid anymore.

You're just like,

Well,

You know,

I'm 19,

About to be 20 and my mom's going to be sick when I tell her this story.

But I'm alive and I'm really grateful to be alive.

But I also know how close I came.

And then days later,

I'm walking down the streets in Africa,

Chip on my shoulder now.

I almost died a couple of days ago.

I'm fine.

I'm not afraid of anything now.

And then there are these girls,

Right?

But I can tell you that I should have been more afraid because what followed me home was scary.

While I was in Africa,

We prayed together often for miracles to happen.

I remember feeling such conviction that something should be happening.

Like,

I'm praying and praying and praying.

Come on,

Lord,

Where are you?

Why are you not here?

And nothing worked.

And I think there was a part of me that started to think,

Maybe this isn't real because miracles aren't happening in front of me.

And these people talk about miracles all the time.

And I'm wondering if that's what was attractive about me was that I was like,

This isn't real.

We just have our bodies and that's it.

I can't summon anything with prayer and God doesn't care about my prayers.

I would say that that was the first sort of,

Quote unquote,

Miraculous event that I've ever experienced was praying over these girls and being yoga.

What comes to mind for me is collective hysteria.

I don't know if you're familiar with that,

But that's happened in Africa several times.

There was an article written about,

I think it was primarily girls that could not stop laughing.

And it spread.

Science,

By the way,

Psychology,

By the way,

Has no way.

They can't explain why this happens.

They can't explain the spread.

They can't explain why this is happening,

But it just happens every once in a while in these pockets all over the world.

Some behavior gets amplified and then it spreads from person to person.

Again,

Nobody,

They haven't been able to actually figure out why these things happen.

I think you have those dreams and I'm just going to say,

Maybe you didn't bring along a little gremlin from Africa.

I'm going to say this is a gremlin free story.

And what it was was actually maybe Jesus in a different form trying to wake you up so you could live a more authentic and generous life.

It was more expansive.

So there was more room for the love that you want to give,

But also receive.

Yeah.

Yeah,

We could absolutely be that.

You could have a bumper sticker that says,

This is a gremlin free zone.

Gremlin free.

We don't harbor demons in our dreams.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

I would say that I lived a more meaningful life after that experience.

Absolutely.

Sometimes the process of being awakened is a violent one.

And also,

Interestingly enough,

If I were to have those dreams,

I would completely miss the point because I didn't live your life and I didn't have your experiences.

But these were the dreams that were given to you to wake you up.

And it was in a language that you could understand.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

Those dreams almost seemed like you were being called.

Right.

Oh,

That's what I was going to say.

Thank you.

I literally,

That is exactly what I was going to say.

I feel like that was me hearing a voice and something shaking me away metaphorically.

Right.

Not just physically,

But also physically.

The fear and the torment and all of that,

I look at now as being refined by fire.

Life would be really,

Really boring if crazy crap didn't happen to us.

And I'm not saying that we have to suffer,

But it does,

I think,

Make us more empathetic to other people's suffering,

Knowing that we have also suffered.

And if we can really be in tune with our own suffering and do the work to find the meaning of the suffering in our own lives,

I'm not talking about globally.

I do think that we can be that helping hand,

That authentic community to someone else and show up for people in a more meaningful way.

So are you going to show up for your own suffering?

You know,

Are you going to drink the poison and experience the pain and the trauma and the reality of it all?

And are you going to do the work to heal?

And I think that's how we make the world a better place and alleviate some of the suffering.

It's like,

Do you take the red pill or the blue pill?

One of the means you're going to suffer.

Well,

They both mean you're going to suffer.

They both mean you're going to suffer,

But in one way you're going to be happy about it.

Thanks for listening to Episode 78.

I hope you enjoyed Episode 78 of Bite-Sized Blessings.

I think it's important to note that even though Micah felt that he was surrounded in darkness,

He was absolutely always surrounded by light in the end.

So no matter what the dark stories are for our lives,

Where those shadows lie in our houses and our heads,

Remember that there's always light,

Always.

And if you seek it,

It will come to you.

I need to thank Micah for being so open and generous with the stories of his dreams.

And I need to thank the creators of the music used.

Frank Schroeder,

Chilled Music,

Alex Productions,

Sasha End,

Music L.

Files,

And Alexander Nakarada.

For complete attribution,

Please see the Bite-Sized Blessings website at bite-sized-blessings.

Com.

On the website,

You'll find links to books,

Music,

Film clips,

And playlists I think will lift and inspire you.

Thank you for listening,

And here's my one request.

In the deepest,

Deepest darkness of your life,

Be like Micah.

Always look for the light.

Always look for the light,

Knowing that eventually it will find you.

Being radically loving is difficult right now.

Yeah,

Oh yeah,

Absolutely.

That is a very interesting response that I'm grateful for.

It's probably the more,

No one else has used eschatological,

Eschatology,

That word I can't call it.

It's one of those words that always turns me up.

I'm like,

I was going to add extra like letters,

Syllables.

Yeah,

Eschatology.

Epistemological.

Something like that,

Yeah.

Anyways.

I can't be fooled.

Be sure to have less letters.