In today’s Gospel reading Jesus tells a ghost story. We adults aren’t generally into such stories, but talk to anyone in their early teens or remember when you were that age, we loved them!  I read nearly every Steven King book by the time I was thirteen, and today there are dozens of books, movies and games that deal with ghost, demons and the occult. This very night around the campfire at St. Vartan kids will tell ghost stories, as they did year after year in the old mansion which housed St. Nersess summer conferences.  Now of course there are lots of bad and silly ghost stories, and Christians must bracket all this under the providence of an all-good God. And yet, the Bible is full of stories of unseen good and evil forces. Modern life is still full of inexplicable phenomenon-near-death experiences, prophetic dreams and intuitions, unexplained coincidences and healing prayers.  And specifically in today’s readings, Jesus and the Apostle Paul remind us that there is much more to life than meets the eye, and that learning to discern and live within the spiritual realm is key to an abundant life in this world unto the next.