Reading the Signs...

Oftentimes we search for signs....omens....clues....indicators that help us feel (to some degree) in control of our circumstances or at least give us confirmation that we are on the right path, to happiness, to success, to completion..Out of the blue, something happens, and a sign is given.... (A new job, the big move, unexpected illness or injury,  a new romance, a sudden death...a family crisis....a violent confrontation... a change of attitude...extreme stress or trauma, a lazy day sleeping in, a chance encounter with a stranger...falling off a ladder...being hit by a car...going to the opera) We do not let such major events simply "go by"  without grasping for some explanation of why...Perhaps from an early age, our religious beliefs* (assuming that any were passed down to us) serve as guideposts....prompts....catalysts for this tendency....not  the tenets of faith alone, not the bare rituals etc., but the feelings that underlie, the deep-seated notions (ethical/philosophical/aesthetic) that we are not mere puppets in the face of pain and death, that we are not totally helpless amid the chaos of matter....that Life is not simply reducible to randomness and absurdity....that mysterious causes have their unforeseen effects, that things happen (oftentimes) for a reason....that sometimes we land on our feet....that justice can win out eventually....that maybe, just maybe, God does have a plan -  that there is a plan, a map, a code, a puzzle to be grappled with if never quite finished...if always seen through a glass darkly....This hopeful premise, that Life is telling us something ... provides an incredible source of security and peace-of-mind for the believer...for a person-of-faith.... the big challenge then lies in unraveling the details of said "divine plan" (the cosmic order applied to ourselves as individuals)  as it unfolds in everyday life.....It is tempting in other words for faith to want to "micromanage" itself to report back to itself in expert fashion. But to do that requires, does it not, some medium, some basis for understanding exactly, precisely, unambiguously what the "clues" are and when they appear in the everyday flow of events... it becomes crucial to read the signs within one's experience...Granted, this impulse toward "understanding" happens all the time even in a secular context....What did event-X mean? Why did X have to happen? What led up to X? Should something else have happened? What should I do next? How important is X in the grand scheme of things? ...  For fervently pious souls, however, the impulse-to-understand  God's will is akin to extracting from the prosaic river of events  a series of prophecies and revelations...The tendency here is to infuse each new development with overwhelming significance, to magnify the tea-leaves into something earth-shattering and life-altering... The mistake, if one may call it that, is to look upon events as "clear-cut" and "obvious" - a direct message from the Almighty - to  lose sense of the  ambiguity and multi-facetedness of experience... to ignore the "alternative readings" that crop up alongside every insight... The mistake thus is an intrusion of Ego (pride, self-importance, vanity) upon something that demands something more akin to awe and humility... It is not at all clear, therefore, whether the ego's need to feel special,to think beyond what the empirical evidence justifies, counts as what one should refer to as real faith or genuine piety....It has more the ring about it of superstition and wild enthusiasm...as when people observe shapes and apparitions or hear voices - or claim that God speaks to them on a daily basis - without any hint of ambiguity or uncertainty....Isn't much more honest to say...I am reading this event as having a particular significance based on intuition rather than a preponderance of evidence... Not that interpreting the significance of X is wrong or to be avoided....not that "wondering" about the resonance of X is mistaken - quite the contrary! - What advantage is gained by dogmatically declaring: "God has spoken.... this must mean such and such???