The Second Sight

In light of the approaching festivities tomorrow, my Lenten reflection is going to be on "the Second Sight." Not that this is a particularly Lenten topic, but it sort of relates to St. Patrick in that the Second Sight is supposedly a Celtic ability, and St. Patrick is Catholic, so there you go - it has connections to Lent.

The festivities actually started this weekend, and yesterday I colored my hair with the copper food coloring I'd used for the penny cake and then went with Hardingfele, A-Joz, and Anna Banana II to the local St. Patrick's Day parade to watch people with Irish surnames dress in green and parade around - and to collect beads, one of my very favorite activities of all time. (Richard Bonomo and Kathbert chose to go hiking out of town with one of the B-Boys, and we couldn't get a hold of A-Fooze because her cell phone was once again out of service.) St. Patrick's Day is kind of like a mini Mardi Gras in the middle of Lent; in fact, one year when it fell on a Friday, the bishop gave us a dispensation so we could eat corned beef if we so desired. Being short, I am at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to bead-catching, but Hardingfele caught me a strand of magenta, trapezoidal beads. Way cool.

Once when I was talking to my godfather about some weird experiences I've had with predicting the future, seeing what people are doing who are far away, etc., he said without any surprise, "That's the Second Sight. All Celtic people have the Second Sight." I don't know if this is true, but he agreed with me that in general Second Sight is just something you have, like a sense of smell: it can come in handy to warn you now and then, but usually it's just there. Most often I have it in dreams that predict all sorts of things: the good, the bad, and the excessively mundane. For example, last week while Rich was out of town sorting out Mr. Why's affairs, I had a weird dream that some woman had collected all my clothes, and the only outfit I could find was too small but I was forced to wear it to a solemn event. I thought it was some weird Freudian thing, but then Rich returned and told us how Mr. Why's mother had collected all of Mr. Why's clothes to give to charity, and she accidentally included Rich's suit in this sweep. He found it in the bag but didn't realize until putting it on that it was actually Mr. Why's suit that looked just like his, only much smaller. He had to wear it to the memorial service for Mr. Why but had to leave it open because he couldn't get it buttoned. This was the same day that I later had my dream.

Sometimes I have hunches too, which I almost always trust. (And when I don't, I'm always sorry!) People sometimes tell me, "You must have good karma!" because they think I'm so lucky, not at winning the lottery but just little things like being able to instantly find people in an enormous crowd. (Once I spotted Rich in a huge crowd, which I later found out was a million strong, so now I always tell him he literally is one in a million!) Maybe I do have good karma since I believe in the Bug Relocation Program rather than squishing them, but mostly it seems to be this strange quality of Second Sight.

Once in a great while I also have visions, which are like a dream while I'm awake. It's like they are being projected onto the real sights in front of me. Here are two I had that I found really useful, so perhaps you will too:

In one vision, I was collecting apples in a bushel basket and then tossing them into a large barrel. I realized the apples were my good works, and I was proud of how many there were, but then I saw that the barrel was the mouth of a hideous monster, which was my pride. It made me realize that if I do good works out of pride, instead of out of love for God, I am just throwing them away.

In another one, a group of people were bemoaning the fact that they had already interviewed twenty-six of the twenty-eight applicants for a daycare teacher position and none of them had been quite what they were looking for. The next applicant, a slim woman in her late 20's or early 30's with long dark hair, arrived and began talking to the people, ignoring the group of children playing off to the side. At first the people were puzzled and annoyed, since the other applicants had made a beeline for the children to show how good they were with them. Then they realized this woman had seen a very shy child hiding among the adults, and she was coaxing him to come over and join the other children. Then the people realized that she was the idea candidate, because the others had made a big deal over the obvious children but this one didn't overlook any child, even if doing so made her appear foolish to the very people who were looking to hire her. This made me realize that sometimes when God seems to be working at cross purposes to what I want, He is actually doing something far better than what I originally desired.

Famous Hat