Halloween Series -- Superstition and Religion -- Part One

I have been contemplating the fine, fuzzy, often unclear line between superstition and religion a lot recently. Really, whether a particular belief or practice is an act of faith or a superstition is mostly a matter of perspective.

It seems to me that the driving force behind all of it is the human's fervent search for meaning. We desire meaning so badly that we create it even when it's nonsensical to do so. The question is where "legitimate" faith ends and nonsensical begins.

Take for instance, an experience I had a couple weeks ago. I have been dogged for many months by a broken relationship. I have gone back and forth and back and forth about whether it is appropriate for me to make another effort at reconciliation. Numerous people had told me it would be pointless. And I mostly suspected they were right. Still, there was part of me that wanted to be able to know I had tried. So at one point, I had made the decision to make a phone call and, assuming I would be talking to voice mail, leave a clear and conciliatory message, with no expectation of response.

I knew that doing this would require a tremendous amount of emotional energy, in preparing my message and then actually leaving it, not to mention dealing with the slight chance that the phone might actually get picked up. I had determined that there was a certain window of time within which this would need to be accomplished, due to various circumstances.

So the day came, and what happened? I had printer problems. Serious, crazy-making printer problems. The kind that consume an insane amount of time. We had a deadline for these things that had to be created, and my printer was the only one that could do them effectively, except that it wasn't cooperating. Four trips to the office supply store later, I realized my window of opportunity for making that hard phone call had passed.

And bizarrely, I interpreted that as a sign, a sign that I wasn't "supposed" to make the phone call. I know that is crazy, but I did it anyway, on multiple levels. On a rationalization level (not a rational level, mind you), it was nice to have an excuse not to do it. But on a completely irrational level, I feel like my psyche interpreted it as a sign too, because the pressure I had been feeling to reach out, despite my expectations of the futility of doing so, was relieved.

God, the universe, fate, something had used my printer and its reluctant cartridges to keep me from doing something. That was how it felt, at a very primal level. I had been struggling to know what to do about the situation, and finally, I had received guidance.

Now, mind you, it seems crazy to me to say all this. But my emotional self doesn't seem to care what's crazy and what's not. It just knows that it's been released from a major source of stress.

Superstition. It's such a weird thing. We denigrate it so much, and yet, we cannot escape it.