I pity the pigs. Not the demons: I have seen too many with psychosis and I have seen those who come to me who need not my skills, but an exorcist. As my mate said last week (when giving me Boar bacon)

A dog looks up to you, a cat looks down at you, only a pig looks you in the eye

We can use pig parts as analogues. We have used their heart valves: for many years we used porcine insulin — until we genetically modified bacteria to make human insulin, having broken the genetic sequence for it.

And there are legions who are in despair. To the point that there are those discussing it continually: trying to drag others into their despair. Some of this is demonic, but much of it is the consequences of our actions and habits of thought.

The times are difficult and challenging. Put your faith in God. And being a relentlessly positive bastard is as adaptive as getting up when the alarm goes off.

Then they sailed to the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. When Jesus had stepped out on land, there met him a man from the city who had demons. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he had not lived in a house but among the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him and said with a loud voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me.” For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many a time it had seized him. He was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the desert.) Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Legion,” for many demons had entered him. And they begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss. Now a large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, and they begged him to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. Then the demons came out of the man and entered the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and drowned.

When the herdsmen saw what had happened, they fled and told it in the city and in the country. Then people went out to see what had happened, and they came to Jesus and found the man from whom the demons had gone, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. And those who had seen it told them how the demon-possessed man had been healed. Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked him to depart from them, for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying, “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” And he went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city how much Jesus had done for him.

(Luke 8:26-39 ESV)

When one who could cure this man of his illness, remove the demons, and return him to his right mind, the pagans demanded he leave, for it was more terrifying than a very violent man they had to keep chained.

And such should scare you: most of the readers have not seen someone who has been made paranoid by PCP or methamphetamine, but I worked in ICUs in Auckland during a crystal meth epidemic. You enter the room with five strong and fit others, and get attacked. The family is crying, because their mother or father or brother, who is usually a caring and loving person, has become a monster.

I hope that Dunedin is spared this, but the signs are that it will not be: the bad habits of the city come to us as surely as the students drink during Orientation Week.

One final thought. This Gaderene was commissioned to proclaim Christ, to the pagans, before Christ died. Christ was well aware that he was not there to redeem Israel alone. And he planted his witnesses among the neighbouring peoples, from among those peoples, while remaining, himself, for the people chosen for God.

To whom the Gaderenes are a type. For as they rejected Christ incarnate doing works of healing, the Jews of Jerusalem rejected Christ as the King-Redeemer. Let us give thanks, then, for the Apostles, who were, as this cured madman was, faithful to their commission, and proclaimed Christ risen to the Jews and then to the Gentiles, even to the Antipodes, where I write.