Superstitions

Superstitions
My beloved, yet expensive, daughter went to summer school in India this year. She was over there for seven weeks, and I think it was a great experience for her. She got a chance to “embed” in a foreign culture, to study a couple of things she was interested in, and – I hope – to realize that philosophies have consequences.

In any case, she brought me back a souvenir – a statue of Ganesha, the elephant god who rides on a mouse and is the lord of success, the destroyer of evils and obstacles. It is cute, it’s from my daughter, and I therefore have it proudly displayed on my desk at work. I have to confess, however, that I did sprinkle it with holy water. So much for my scientific education and my rationalism.

Now, I can defend the sprinkling – one never knows where an idol like that has come from – but it made me think about how thin the veneer of modernity is that covers my human nature within. If handling a Hindu idol from my own (thoroughly Christian) daughter can make a trained biochemist and IT developer reach for the holy water, what would happen to us all if we really took a hit? I hope that if Al Qaeda ever pops a nuke on us, we respond like rational beings created in the Imago Dei, and don’t turn on one another like sharks in a feeding frenzy. On the other hand, perhaps I shouldn’t extrapolate from my own mildly psychotic self to everyone else out there.