Magic

When I was a kid my family and I went to an amusement park - think Wisconsin Dells. They had boat rides, and in one of them a kid like me could take the wheel and guide the boat through a course among rocks and things. I was pretty proud of making it through a particularly tricky patch.

On the drive home I was bragging a bit about it. Of course, I didn’t THINK of it as bragging, but that’s really what it was. Then I was told the boat was pulled along on a rail, and the steering wheel didn’t really do anything. I was chastened.

That’s how I think of magic. As long as you turn the wheel where the rail leads, it looks like you’re steering the boat. The moment you try to turn off the established route you learn it’s not you steering the boat.

Flutter your hands, toss a few exotic herbs into a pot, chant a series of syllables, wait a couple of hours, and VOILA! Your chili is ready. But you won’t make it rain, you won’t get the object of your affection to love you, and you won’t clear up a traffic jam - unless it was going to happen anyway.

In the Bible Jesus healed a lot of people. He didn’t do it the same way twice. A blind man was healed by washing mud off his eyes. Another was simply touched. One sick person was healed with a word, another was touched, a third just touched Jesus’ cloak. Why the differentiation? ‘Cuz God ain’t magic.

There’s no recipe for how to get God to do what you want. If there were a series of steps on how to get His power to work for you, then it’s you - not God. Since “I Am a jealous God” doesn’t want to share the credit with anyone (there’s nobody worth sharing the credit with, BTW), He makes sure you can’t boast about driving the boat of His healing. It’s all God, not you.

This is the basic premise of my story The Final Spell (published in the anthology Shadows and Teeth: Volume One, Darkwater Syndicate [2016]). A man is trying to learn magic so he can have power over others. A malevolent entity, claiming to be the ghost of a deceased wizard, teaches the man how to learn magic. It doesn’t turn out well.

Do you wish yourself luck, cross your fingers, wear a lucky hat, or have some other ritual you think will make things better for you? That’s like putting a steering wheel on a boat driving a track. If you’re going to get fired from your job, making a good batch of chili won’t help. (Well, maybe if it’s good batch and you give it to your boss . . . . nah, probably not.)

When you reach the end of your life and get out of the boat, will you claim you steered through the rocks and hazards, or will you give Him credit for laying down the track you followed?