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By Robert Kirby
Salt Lake Tribune Columnist
While speeding to a discussion on my LDS mission 30 years ago, the front tire of my bicycle came off. I plowed up a big part of South America with my face.
Later, as they put me back together, the other missionaries I roomed with wondered if the crash might be an omen, a sign from God about some important but fuzzy point.
Perhaps we were not meant to share the gospel with the people living on cursed ground. Maybe we were supposed to stay out of that part of town altogether. And where did Elder Kirby's mashed face fit into the signs of the times?
I tried to catch on but couldn't. If my battered face was an omen, the best interpretation I could come up with was that God wanted me to stop popping wheelies on my bike. A gentle whispering of the Spirit would have sufficed.
This is not to say that omens never occur. It's just that I never seem to see them. Being a spiritual inchworm may have something to do with this.
The only thing I ever witness that fits into the omen category are flashing red and blue lights. Whenever I see them in my rear view mirror I know that something bad is about to happen.
I will concede that omens do occur, though I doubt they happen as often as people seem to think. The right kind of person sees corroborating omens everywhere.
When the LDS Samoan Temple burned down last month, it could have been an omen. Exactly what kind of omen it was depended largely on what kind of a person saw it.
For example, some readers were quick to point out that it was a sign God was really going to whack Mormons. Others were certain the fire was an indication that God's chosen people would soon be persecuted again.
Then there were fools like me who wondered if another fool had simply left a hot plate on in the cafeteria. For us, bad wiring is a stronger argument than bad portent.
The stupidest omens are the ones we think indicate who God does not like, and it always seems to be someone we don't think too highly of either. For example, some claim that AIDS is an omen about homosexuals. Exactly what the omen means for heterosexuals dying of the same thing is a bit of a mystery.
If a dozen Catholic nuns die in a bus crash, do you secretly believe that God was sending a message to those in the know about which church was his special church?
When a cyclone washes 80,000 Hindus out to sea, or a Baptist preacher gets his bells rung by lightning is it an omen or just life on a risky planet?
Dire warnings exist everywhere for those eager to see them, especially if they foretell of some calamity to people with whom they are at odds. Maybe that's why omens always seem to be bad.
If God is love, why don't we see more good omens indicating that we should all come together better, or at least leave each other alone? Maybe this absence is trying to tell us something.
Page Modified: August 4, 2003