Divining the Future

According to a variety of mostly credible websites a bird’s wishbone is technically known as the furcula, which is made up of two fused clavicles.

And we got the tradition of snapping wishbones from the Etruscans, an ancient Italian civilization, who loved their chickens.

Apparently, they believed that the birds were oracles and could divine the future.

They even turned the fowl into walking ouija boards with a ritual called alectryomancy, which basically translates as “rooster divination.”

Sounds crazy, doesn’t it?

Not really.

Because when it sucks, when we can barely breathe or hold on one more second, we want to know what’s coming next.

We are so damn tired of living with the uncertainty, that we want a rooster, a penny, god, even a dust bunny to tell us something good is on the way.

Because it’s hard to not know.

To hold space. Space that we might not have asked for. Or space that feels like it will never end.

And where in the hell is Morgan Freeman’s voice to tell us it is all going to be okay?

Change, uncertainty . . . those words can cause trembling and fear in the bravest of souls.

And rightly so in this world of ours right now.

I preached in my hometown this past weekend, and in my sermon, I talked about a book I’d been reading, The Not-Yet God by the Franciscan nun, Ilia Delio. Delio says that in the past, God was out there. In the sky. A majestic figure on a throne.

But with quantum physics—those weird and mysterious happenings at the smallest of levels—she argues that we need to consider seeing that God is In. Ilio claims “we are gods in the making and making the wrong god makes the wrong kind of world in which we live.”

What traditional theology shares with rooster divination, Magic 8-balls, and tarot cards is the seeking of an Out There to tell us what is going to happen next. To make it all okay.

But if we are gods in the Making of this world, then we have the power to create the world as we know it. Will it be one full of love and holiness? Or hate and fear?

I confess, I often use tarot cards, and I never pass up a chance to ask a Magic 8-ball a question whenever I see one . . . but more and more I’m learning that I don’t have to look out there to Divine the Future. I can do it with each choice I make.

Which steps, which acts, which habits make me less god? Which ones make me more god—a being who shines with an inexplicable radiance, one who lives with love, especially when it’s hard?

While a furcula might or might not be able to bring us all we wish for, our choices sure will.

Step by step, choice by choice, that’s how we become the Light That Shines in the Darkness. The Love That Never Ends.