Sophia at RevGals writes:
The fear of Friday the 13th is called paraskevidekatriaphobia, a word derived from the concatenation of the Greek words Paraskeví (Παρασκευή) (meaning Friday), and dekatreís (δεκατρείς) (meaning thirteen), attached to phobía (φοβία) (meaning fear). The term triskaidekaphobia derives from the Greek words "tris", meaning 'three', "kai", meaning 'and', and "deka", meaning 'ten'. the whole word means three and ten. The word was derived in 1911 and first appeared in a mainstream source in 1953. (Wikipedia)
With thanks to my dear spouse TechnoGuy for the great suggestion, it's a Friday the 13th Friday Five!
1. How is this Friday the 13th looking for you? As of right now, it is going well. I am heading home for the weekend (in less than an hour, actually.) Class was fun. Breakfast was good. I'll be attending Cornstock--a festival of poetry and music hosted at Earthrise Farm, the organic farm that I am on the board at.
2. Have you ever had anything unlucky happen on Friday the 13th? Not that I can think of. A friend of mine was walking back to his dormitory last night right at midnight. As the bells tolled midnight (we have bells every 15 minutes plus they ring once for every hour on the hour), a black cat strolled out of the middle of nowhere and crossed his path. We'll see how that goes for him.
3. Did your family of origin embrace or scorn superstitions? Generally, they embraced cultural superstition. The majority of my family is from non-liturgical background and consider liturgy to be sort of superstition. In that case, they do not embrace superstition for the most part (which is unfortunate.)
4. Are there any unique or amusing ones from your family, region, or ethnic background? Well, St. John's is steeped in superstition. For example, the first girl (in the case of a Johnnie) you take a Chapel Walk (it's an hour long walk from the main campus to a beautiful chapel in the middle of the woods) with will become your wife eventually. In the basement of the library, there is a basement study room. They lock this study room 15 minutes before the regular library. They'll knock on the door when they are about to close it, but will not yell or make sure that everybody is out. It is rumoured that a monk was locked in the basement and died. If you fall asleep while doing homework in the basement (or just leave your homework there), the monk will do it for you (he isn't the best at math from what I'm told.)
5. Do you love or hate horror movies like "Friday the 13th"? As a rule, I can't stand horror movies. I am able to watch "The Exorcist" and movies like that simply because it has a religious element and I am comfortable with that and intrigued by that (plus I spend more time critiquing the accuracy than actually paying attention to the horror of the movie.)
Have a beautiful and blessed weekend!
God is Love,
+Cody
Wednesday Festival of Thanksgiving
1 hour ago
