If you look on my windowsill, you are likely to see old-fashioned milk bottles, shining in the sunlight and throwing colors off the marbles that fill each bottle to its brim. Yes, I collect marbles. There is some truth to it when my family mentions that I have lost my marbles, but have no fear, I know where I can find them again. The thing is, though, that as much as I enjoy my pretty marbles, I don’t confuse their colors and crystals with strengths and auras. I don’t bathe with my marbles, or place them strategically on my body and meditate, or burn colored candles while I stare at my marbles. Sounds kind of New Age, doesn’t it? That’s when the hippies set us all free: free-flowing hair, free to be me, free love, and children named Autumn and Clover and Blue, who have been breaking out of common social forms into feminism, civil rights, and transgender alternatives. Another trend keeping time with the hippies’ grandchildren – the Millennials – is the metaphysical spiritualism born out of free love and activism and tolerance. The shops that peddle crystals and candles and communication with the dead have left behind their dark, mellow atmosphere; now the open, bright shop space serves as a metaphor for honesty and authenticity, leading the Spirit-hungry millennials down a wide path. But the Bible is clear: candles are for light, not for divining knowledge. “There shall not be found among you anyone…who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord” (Deuteronomy 18:9-12). “Do not turn to mediums or necromancers; do not seek them out, and so make yourselves unclean by them: I am the Lord your God” (Leviticus 19:31). Then Saul said to his servants, “Seek out for me a woman who is a medium that I may go to her and inquire of her. And his servants said to him, “Behold, there is a medium at Endor…When the woman saw Samuel, she screamed, “You’ve deceived me!” (1 Samuel 28:7, 12). ‘If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him” (James 1:5). ”But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it” (Matthew 7:14). So whatever the Age, spiritualism is not the same as the Holy Spirit of our triune God. Take care and stay in prayer!

Rev. Linda Lee (Shaw) Karanja-Sebastian