Today is Friday the 13th and some folk believe that the day is unlucky. The ‘Joy Jar’ exercise was one of finding something to be grateful for every day. Grateful people are not superstitious because they are hopeful and no matter the circumstances, there is something to be thankful for.
Philippians 4:11
New International Version
I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.
Today’s deposit into the ‘Joy Jar’ is overcoming superstition with hope.
“If a black cat crosses your path, it signifies that the animal is going somewhere.”
Groucho Marx“Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.”
Bertrand Russell, Unpopular Essays“What the mind doesn’t understand, it worships or fears.”
Alice Walker“The root of all superstition is that men observe when a thing hits, but not when it misses.”
Francis Bacon“Superstition [is] cowardice in the face of the Divine.”
Theophrastus“Superstition has been defined as the use of a form whose significance has been forgotten.”
Dion Fortune, Esoteric Orders and Their Work and The Training and Work of the Initiate“Mankind accepts good fortune as his due, but when bad occurs, he thinks it was aimed at him, done to him, a hex, a curse, a punishment by his deity for some transgression, as though his god were a petty storekeeper, counting up the day’s receipts.”
Sheri S. Tepper, The Visitor“It will seem to many persons very inconsistent with their ideas of the dignity of a spirit that they should appear and act in the manner I have described, and shall describe further; and I have heard it objected that we cannot suppose God would permit the dead to return merely to frighten the living, and that it is showing Him little reverence to imagine He would suffer them to come on such trifling errands, or demean themselves in so undignified a fashion. But God permits men of all degrees of wickedness, and of every kind of absurdity, to exist, and to harass and disturb the earth, whilst they expose themselves to its obloquy or its ridicule.”
Catherine Crowe, The Night Side of Nature“There is a faculty in man that will acknowledge the unseen. He may scout and scare religion from him; but if he does, superstition perches near.”
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, The Haunted Baronet And Others: Ghost Stories 1861-70“You may substitute knowledge for superstition without satisfying the needs that drive people into superstition’s arms.”
Susan Neiman, Moral Clarity: A Guide for Grown-up Idealists“We live in a world where unfortunately the distinction between true and false appears to become increasingly blurred by manipulation of facts, by exploitation of uncritical minds, and by the pollution of the language.”
Arne Tiselius“When even the brightest mind in our world has been trained up from childhood in a superstition of any kind, it will never be possible for that mind, in its maturity, to examine sincerely, dispassionately, and conscientiously any evidence or any circumstance which shall seem to cast a doubt upon the validity of that superstition. I doubt if I could do it myself.”
Mark Twain, The Autobiography of Mark Twain
In the end, people are left with empty superstition or acknowledging that there is a higher POWER:
“My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.”
Abraham LincolnI believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.
C. S. Lewis
drwilda 
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