Can we talk?

Birds and Angels

             Don't you get sick of all the superstition all around us? In such an enlightened era, people still hold to such nonsense.

         For instance, I don't believe an itchy hand means you're going to shake hands with a stranger or that you're going to come into unexpected money. But I don't mind people making the comment. Or an itchy nose means company's coming. Won't hurt to be ready, but it's not really a foretelling. Black cats don't cause bad luck. They're God's creatures, so if one crosses your path, it's no worse than an Angus cow crossing your path. These are rather harmless and most people know there's no truth to them. They say them just to connect to previous generations.

         I know that humans don't become angels when they die. If humans are made in God's image and angels are not, then why would we go backwards? Angels are servants of God and  people are children of God. Again, a demotion. Paul writes in the New Testament that in heaven, those who are saved will sit with Jesus in judgment of the angels. Angels will not judge humans. So this is an erroneous statement made by many well-educated and well-know public figures and is a concept prevalent in literature.

         Currently, there is an email and a Facebook posting about cardinals or redbirds. Supposedly, spirits of our departed loved ones are visiting us in the form of redbirds. Hogwash. No bird carries the spirit of a departed human. Birds are just birds. The spirits of the departed are at rest. Fiction is just fiction. Let's not mix it up with truth.

         There was an old belief that a sneeze signified the exit of evil spirits from the body. (I sneeze a lot, so I must be really possessed.) Others would then utter a blessing on the newly cleansed person. The French would say something like "Scat" to chase the spirits away, to avoid their lingering about. My mother's family would say "Scat", but I don't think they had any French in them. There is a quaintness about "Scat" of blessings that doesn't offend.

         Most superstitions are harmless, like not stepping on a crack. The one about not walking under a ladder is even good; it helps prevent something from falling on you. But things like spirits in birds and wrong ideas about angels mislead people and affects them emotionally. You can tell someone that spilling salt is not bad luck and he will disagree but not get upset. Let someone think his grandmother is visiting him every morning on the back porch through a cardinal; then what happens when the neighbor's cat attacks and kills the bird?