{"id":578,"date":"2006-10-03T15:36:35","date_gmt":"2006-10-03T20:36:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/2006\/jinx\/"},"modified":"2006-10-04T10:26:54","modified_gmt":"2006-10-04T15:26:54","slug":"jinx","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/2006\/jinx\/","title":{"rendered":"Jinx"},"content":{"rendered":"

We know that superstitions are just that: superstitions. Not only are they illusory, I think they can distract us from true appreciation of God’s providence, which is characterized by grace and generosity, not arcane tricks and “gotchas.” So it’s humbling to admit how alluring the idea of a jinx is. <\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Ann and I notice this whenever we’re dearly hoping that Lucy will fall asleep, whether for a nap or the night: the impulse is powerful to avoid saying, “I think she’s quiet now” — for fear that, yes, we’ll jinx it. No amount of modern rationality (or sound theology, for that matter) seems able to conquer this gut feeling.<\/p>\n

(How do we think jinxes work, anyway? God gives us the power of language and the right to name all the animals, and we jump to the conclusion that our saying the magic words can bring something to pass. This is either the most primitive or the most postmodern idolatry of human language, I can’t tell which.)<\/p>\n

Anyway, we heard a great story once. Our friend Charlie says he was in conversation with a distinguished New Orleanian gentleman (I always picture him in a white suit with a big mustache). Charlie passed some innocent remark that “it was lucky” that something or other happened, and the gentleman leaned in to interrupt: “Now, Chahlie, are you a _Christian_ man? There’s no ‘luck.’ There’s only the sovereignty of God.”<\/p>\n

Fair enough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We know that superstitions are just that: superstitions. Not only are they illusory, I think they can distract us from true appreciation of God’s providence, which is characterized by grace and generosity, not arcane tricks and “gotchas.” So it’s humbling to admit how alluring the idea of a jinx is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kids"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}