Signs?

What makes an omen an omen?
What makes a sign a sign?
What is synchronicity and what is borrowing trouble?


Superstition, signs and wonders, omens and myths are made when a series of circumstances present themselves in conjunction with events that can be controlled or observed by a less than objective observer. In ancient texts, we are told that the gods bestow favor under banners called blessings. They administer punishment under curses. Or do we just think they do?

Religious friends tell me that we can not count on signs and wonders because they are constructs of the mind not messages from the divine. The opinion is justified in the explanation that early man misunderstood causal relationships. That because lightening which comes from the sky strikes a dry and highly flammable hut does not mean God hates you. It means that you are a moron who waited too long to re-thatch your dwelling. Yet this type of non-related incident is the foundation of many myths and legends. We are told that only the uneducated look for omens as roadsigns indicating good or bad choices. My pagan friends rely on signs and wonders, look for answers in the alignment of stars and in the random selection generators packaged as Tarot decks. They look for confirmation that they are on the right path.
It may be a human tendency or a failing. And in the earliest forms of our scriptural heritage signs and wonders abound. God uses signs throughout the Hebrew, Christian and Muslim texts to confirm His word through his prophets. Moses depended on signs in the Sinai desert the same way we look at Map quest to know where we are going or sailors use the stars to guide them at sea. The concern that the religious have is that you turn your power over to someone else (a fortune teller, seer etc...) to determine your direction and not God. Many psychologists think that it is cheap and easy way to avoid being accountable for your actions. So how do you know if there are signs and wonders or if you're just being wishy-washy? I don't know.

I have been attending to a part of my life I've neglected for the last month. Mostly because I am tired of that bone weary, soul-crushing loneliness I mentioned in the previous post. But also because it is something I should know. I should know what my type of guy is. And I don't. I thought I did. And at this point the only thing I can really say is that I like guys that are older than me. But I don't know what my true type is. So I signed up for a site which was going to get me more out of the house time than the traditional dating site. And it is working. I've gone out at least 8 times with one yielding a second date. What does that have to do with signs and wonders? Only that each time I have gone out there has been what I can only describe as a sign, a dark sign... the kind of sign that says "Turn back now!"
The first sign that I was asking for trouble or at the very least had found a way to displease the Big Guy? Started a period. Period lasted long enough to stop things before they started, get home and gt a shower. The last sign? Sister Anne Monica walked into the coffee shop. How do I know it was a sign? Honestly, non of us can know for sure. But the simple fact that I was in a coffee shop meeting with a friend I hoped would be a hook up and that Sr. Anne Monica hasn't even been in town for 25 years. But today she shows up in my regular coffee shop? That is hardly an accident. Or is it?
Sting and other New Agers would call it synchronicity. The serendipitous arrangement of events that allegedly proves there is an intelligence in the cosmos. So is it a coincidence? Or am I looking for reasons to do or not do? Am I looking for some thing outside of myself to make my choices so that I don't have to be responsible? I don't know. I just wonder if the camp that doesn't believe that God uses signs and wonders to communicate with us can honestly say that Sr. Anne Monica was not a sign. I mean come on. She hasn't been here in 25 years! She left a little after my class ruined Sr. Melvina. If that isn't a sign I don't know what is.
Of course I don't know if the sign is to tell me that I'm looking at the wrong people, casting too broad a net or not even supposed to be concerned about this because God wants me to be alone. And that only because guys are distracting enough that I won't accomplish any of my goals or be available for the uses God has in mind. Fine. But he better tell me what the hell I'm supposed to be doing. Because right now I can't find enough to weird, archaic or super specialized topics to keep my mind off of guys. I don't think its the biological clock issue either because I don't want kids.
I just want to know if these are signs I can take to the betting table.