November 13, 2016 - Wishing on a necklace clasp showing?

          Recently I noticed something I have never witnessed before.   When my fellow female workers find their necklace clasp has slipped and is showing – you know the way the claps works its way down to the front and center and becomes the focal point instead of the correct ornamental focal point - they hold onto it, close their eyes and make a wish as they slide the clasp to the back of their neck.

They use the same scrunching shut of their eye lids as if they are a four-year old making a wish when they blow out their birthday cake candles.  After about the 4^th time I witnessed this, I asked about it.  They thought I had dropped in from the planet Mars having not known about it.  These are not children, these are adult woman and it is completely new to me.  And, I am pondering why I haven’t seen this phenomenon before.

          I’ve been down here in North Carolina for 31 years and have only witnessed this since August of this year, so it can’t be a southern thing.  Did it come from a new Disney movie?  Did some mega star start this and it has gone “viral” and I’ve missed it? 

          The claps of my necklace slips down dozens of times a day, does that mean I get to wish that many times?  WISH?  What will WISHING get me?

Sure, I play into blowing out the candles on my birthday cake once a year [if I have one] as it makes the people around me happy that I have something that I still “wish for” in life.  And most of the times I can’t think of anything “big” to wish for – usually something silly – nice weather, unexpectedly hear from a friend, or some daily ordinary thing that I wouldn’t notice if the wish came true or not.

Maybe I am just a realist.  Wish for it or actually do something to “make it happen”.  I am in the latter category. When I can’t personally make it happen I resort to prayer.

          Or, is this a situation where I am in a covey of people who don’t pray on a regular basis and they substitute this “necklace clasp wish” for their unknown need for prayer?  Maybe these people don’t know how to “pray” for their dreams, or hopes, or needs?  Maybe they’ve never been exposed to religion and prayer?

Or, forbid my overreacting, could this be a subtle sign of growing atheism in the world and they don’t believe there is a higher power, a GOD as in [Father, Son and Holy Ghost] to pray to?  That thought made me ponder for a long time.  I am on day two of that ponder.

My religion, Catholicism, tells us to pray constantly.  Not, pray to ask for something all the time, but first to pray in thanks giving.  Well, by the time I think about what I am thankful for, most of the time, I don’t have much in the column “titled” prayer requests for self.  And, next I send up generous prayers for family and friends who need jobs, who are ill, who have lost a loved one or who have lost the faith.

This morning I actually got up the courage to ask my priest after church,

“This wishing thing – is it the atheists way of trying to pray?”  I quizzed.

He answered my question with a question, “Sending a wish out into the universe . . . to where?  To whom?  Do they believe in a higher authority?  Where does their wish go?”

 That was enough of an answer for me . . . I’d rather pray than wish.  I know where my prayers are going.  Next time I find my necklace clasp in the wrong place I’ll say a Glory Be.  I’ll be sending a prayer, not a wish.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost, As it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be, world without and.  Amen



Additional information at: The Catholic Spiritual Life:

http://professorjohnston.com/category/glory-be/