Superstition: a root cause of poverty

One of the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals for 2015 is to reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day. This effort to uplift the human race meets a very practical need, especially in a country like Turkey, where I have lived for almost 40 years, and where 18.5 million people live in poverty.

Yet if money were the solution, it’s likely that poverty would have been eradicated long ago.

I like to pray about the roots of poverty, which could be described as mental, and include such thorny issues as superstition. Long-held attitudes, customs, and beliefs keep people fearful, ignorant, unwilling to change.

In her major work, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy stated the problem like this: “Superstition, like ‘the fowls of the air,’ snatches away the good seed before it has sprouted.”

But these aspects of the problem may yield far more readily to prayer than any other approach, because the prayer I’ve learned about through Christian Science directly addresses mental causes.

I often go to the Bible to get inspiration for my prayers for Turkey. On one occasion, I found a verse about the evil eye: “He that hasteth to be rich hath an evil eye, and considereth not that poverty shall come upon him.”

I was drawn to this verse because there is a prevalent superstitious belief of the evil eye in Turkey. Many people here carry or wear a blue bead, a talisman used to ward off the possible harm believed to be caused when someone gazes too long at a coveted object.

The fear associated with this superstition has deeper implications than just concern about individual envy over a material possession, and can affect all kinds of people.

For instance, I have a good friend with beautiful blue eyes. One day, we were watching an ice skating championship together on television. Every time a skater fell down, my friend flinched and immediately covered his eyes with his hand. He was afraid his blue eyes were causing the falls, and he didn’t want to hurt the skater—so he averted his eyes.

And people believe harm from the evil eye does not stop there. Accidents, illness, loss of business, beauty, livestock, or harvest—misfortunes of all kinds—are thought to be caused by a power vested in the evil eye. With such a universally widespread belief, it’s easy to understand why the blue bead is so popular. Similar amulets, with similar perceived properties, exist in other cultures.

Thinking there should be a better way to be protected from harm, a divine way—a scientifically spiritual solution—I searched the Bible again for inspiration and found this verse in the book of Habakkuk: “Thou [God] art of purer eyes than to behold evil.”

Since God is pure and does not behold evil, then God’s children, who have inherited everything good from their Father-Mother God, are pure and do not behold evil—do not gaze with envy on another’s possessions or situation in life.

To see ourselves with purity is to realize that, as God’s children, all of us are spiritual and perfect, made in His image and likeness. Under God’s gaze, there is no cause for envy or corruption of any kind. We don’t get caught up in envying the material possessions of another, because God is Love, and loves each of His children equally.

And because He loves equally, He gives equally, and so does His image and likeness. Each of us may express spiritual qualities—intelligence, beauty, joy, peace, energy—uniquely, but all of us have access to God’s abundant good. Love’s children, like Love, are charitable, not envious; pure, not corrupt; therefore, their inheritance is not poverty, but the prosperity born of divine Spirit. In the prosperity of divine Spirit, no one is deprived or cheated of the good meant for each one.

So who are God’s children, anyway? You are. I am. So are the homeless street children of Istanbul. So are the poor village peasants of eastern Turkey. So are the corrupt civil servant and the get-rich-quick middleman. In fact, the true identity of every single person on this planet is “child of God.”

As I’ve pondered this while praying for Turkey, I've realized that a limited, material view of humanity—rife with strife, corruption, envy, poverty—is not the unlimited, spiritual view of God who is “of purer eyes than to behold evil.” I must see God’s children as also being “of purer eyes than to behold evil.” They do not behold with envious intent.

One way I’ve done this is by refusing to be daunted by the poverty and suffering going on around me. I've started to focus on the good already here—good things like the warm welcome my sister-in-law and her husband gave my husband and me when we first arrived in this country. They let us sleep in their bed for two months while they slept on the living room couch.

Good things like the generous hospitality of shopkeepers—they inevitably offer you a cup of hot tea. Good things like the friendship of neighbors—they love to share freshly baked cookies and cakes. While each of these might seem like material gestures, what counts is the love behind them. That’s the beholding that prospers, that enables me to love my neighbor as myself, and at the same time rebukes the poverty of a covetous evil eye.

Now, as I pray, I’m beholding those in places of authority, who deal with poverty-reducing projects, as God’s perfect, benevolent children, rather than as corrupt mortals selfishly siphoning off what is meant for others. I’m trusting that this view will help counteract any covetous thoughts that would try to prevent prosperity from taking hold, here or anywhere.

And I’m learning to not trust the bead or fear the eye, but to count the blessings God has already given me and to magnify them for Turkey and all humanity.

Gloria Onyuru has lived in Turkey for 40 years. She has written many articles on spiritual subjects for the Christian Science Sentinel and The Christian Science Journal.

Read more about the United Nations Millennium Development Goals

Printer friendly