I love movies about exorcisms. Apparently, so do many others. The 2023 movie “Nefarious” features a possibly possessed inmate on death row. Critics were not impressed, but audiences scored it at 97% on the website Rotten Tomatoes. Most people have an appreciation for the demonic realm, even if cultural elites are generally embarrassed about it. As is standard in exorcism movies, the afflicted person (in this case, a man named Edward Brady) thinks and acts like multiple persons. He is someone besides himself. We know what that is like. We feel fake sometimes, not ourselves.

We start telling lies around the age of three, the experts tell us. It’s understandable. Lying is a god-like power. Whatever I want, I need only say it, and the world rearranges itself accordingly. It’s amazing at first. But soon reality snaps back and I’m faced with a dilemma. If I remain committed to my lie I start to fracture into pieces. My words and reality drift apart, and I find myself lost in a lonely world of further falsehoods and fear of being found out.

As a priest, I’m amazed how happily married couples remember the tiniest details of their earliest encounters. They effortlessly report things like: “he wore a blue shirt,” “we ordered brussels sprouts,” “her hair was up in a bun,” and “he spilled shrimp cocktail sauce at my family’s open front door when it was ten degrees below zero,” (that one’s courtesy of my mom). We delight in remembering and speaking of when our new life of love began. The little details are glorious reminders that it’s all real.

A stranger in a foreign land, I was exhausted and homesick as my summer Spanish immersion ended in Guatemala. The rusty minivan arriving outside my small residence filled me with joyful hope. I was flying home to the U.S. and would be, at long last, completely happy. Or so I thought. After about half an hour of being home, I thought to myself, “This place is boring. I want to go somewhere.” So, I hopped in my car and left to see my friends. As I drove, I wistfully wondered, “Where am I truly at home?”