Night-Time Encounter: BTP (Before Trailer Park)

As I mentioned earlier, our family ended up in the trailer park when I was older than 3.  But, before that, we lived in a typical 50's-era residence.  From what little I recall, when you came in the front door you were in the living room, most of it was on the right.  To the left was a dining area and kitchen.  Walking straight ahead would take you down a hall to where there were two or three bedrooms and a bathroom.  Of course, to a pre-schooler, everything looked much larger than it would to my adult eyes.  I have driven by this little house a few times in the years since.  Nondescript, unremarkable, now old and in disrepair.

There is little from the handful of years spent there that I can recall, no doubt due to my very young age.  However, there are two or three vivid events from BTP (Before Trailer Park).  This is one.

Normally a sound sleeper, I woke in the middle of the night and ended up walking down the hallway and sitting on the couch in the living room.  The room was dimly lit by moonlight or street-lighting seeping in through the curtains of the front window.  So there I sat, wide awake in the dark.  The other side of the room seemed far away.  But not far enough away, for suddenly I saw standing there two figures.  Shadowy, dark, ill-defined.  What I saw looked like two men dressed in black robes belted at the waist.  On their heads were cone-shaped, brimmed hats that resembled a classic witches hat, though not nearly so tall.  The gloom and the hat brims hid their faces.  In my young mind, there was a blend of curiosity and dread.  Instinctively I knew that they were not there for my good.  I sat, too frightened to move or call out.  Next, there came a sense that I was safe, not because these beings were no longer dangerous.  And as I watched, it seemed they got smaller or farther away or both -- almost as if they backed away from me by going outside the house and towards the street light.  Then, they were simply gone.  I felt immensely relieved and decided it was safe to go back to bed.  So I padded down the hall, got in bed, and went back to sleep.

Was it a dream?  I remember it very clearly, and told my Mom about it soon afterward.  There are similar accounts by others here, here and here.  My experience happened well before our family became immersed in the local Assemblies of God church; before I had any notion of angels or demons.  That said, one of the realities of the Bible is that it leaves more room for spiritual beings (both good or ill) than our scientific culture can often tolerate.  All I can say with certainty is that this remains a marker in my life, a reminder that the fullness of human experience cannot be measured, quantified, calibrated, data-modeled.  It can only be known as one encounters it.