Folklore, tradition, wife’s tales, superstition all play a part in our everyday lives
When I was little, my mother had to work, unusual for a Cuban woman of the day but I was left to the care of this very nice woman who said I was “her Godson”. In any case, having that privilege was awesome for me because she was kind and loving. She lived with her parents and was unmarried…clearly at her age she was a spinster. The parents, both illiterate were colorful characters in my hometown.
One of the curious thing that I observed was the pious behavior and religiosity that the mother displayed. She kept a calendar and would look up every day at the saints listed for that one day and she would announce: “Today is St. Gervasio’s day…we have to go to his house and wish him a happy Saint’s day.” It matter not that the bloke wasn’t born on that particular day but what mattered to her is that he had the Saint’s name.
There was one very curious thing this woman believed in: she thought that she had supernatural powers…the power to heal, to give a stomach massage and to “pasar la mano” of any sick 
person and she would miraculously make that person healthy again.
But I think that what really took the grand prize was that she believed she could actually dissolve a waterspout or a forming tornado. This was significant because my hometown was almost destroyed in its entirety in a December 26, 1940 tornado. What this woman did was to take a knife, point it at the forming 
menacing cloud and utter some nonsense accompanied by a prayer. Sure the waterspout dissolved and everyone was at awe…but it was going to dissolve anyhow…at least that is what I thought and to me she didn’t really do anything…and in reality, she didn’t…it was her own conviction that she could, she actually thought she could dissolve the tornado.
Look, I don’t care really if you believe in little green unicorns from Tasmania; nor if you opt to worship them while hanging upside down from a chandelier. What troubles me is the insistence of some of these believers of nonsense and superstition that I too have to believe or I am a heretic or worse.
The most important thing for those “believers” or those who claim to have “faith” is that their convictions may be very real and very emotional for them but they can’t go around trying to push it on other people. Some of us are even resentful when one of these religious fanatics comes and knocks at my front door looking for validation and to convert me.
The way I see it; if your religion is so great, you wouldn’t need to go around knocking on doors looking for converts…people would knock down your door in order to join you. So, please spare me the absurdity of your rationalizations, refrain from trying to tell me that I am going to hell and that sort of thing if I don’t believe the same way you do.
You have your Constitutional right to have faith and believe in anything you deem worthy…but what I will absolutely not tolerate is for you to get together with other people of the same mindset as yours and make laws that deprive me of my rights or render me a second class citizen. You are not any better or any worse than I am and the sooner you learn that the better. You don’t have a special relationship with God and if you did God hasn’t found out about it.
PHOTO SOURCE: http://members.fortunecity.com/spaar/unicorn-gallery/unicorn01/unicorn006.jpg
http://news.webshots.com/photo/1480129479073760323CdEczD
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/piero/saints2
