But I'm not superstitious!

It was Friday the thirteenth. On the way to the airport the cab driver remarked that it was a good day for business. So few of his colleagues had shown up for work that he got most of the better paying trips to the airport.

''I'm not superstitious,'' he claimed, unmindful of the ''good luck'' charms dangling above his window. But when the cab fare and my tip totaled thirteen dollars, he pushed the tip back at me, flustered. ''No way am I going to sign a fare receipt for thirteen dollars on Friday the thirteenth.''

How many of us, I wonder, like that cab driver, are certain we're not superstitious? Yet perhaps we fear that something dreadful might happen to us when, for instance, a Friday falls on the thirteenth. If so, we're believing in an evil force beyond our control. That's all superstition is, really -- a belief that harm can be manifested through a person, an object, a condition or circumstance.

''Superstition and understanding can never combine,'' n1 writes Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science. We need a spiritual understanding of the pure goodness of God, divine Love, in whom is no evil. Because God never made evil, in reality there is no hidden force in the universe to haunt or hurt mankind. Furthermore, any belief we may be holding to, that evil has power over us or anyone else, can be eliminated through a better understanding of God.

n1 Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 288.

Christ Jesus' clear understanding of God's infinite goodness enabled him to cast out devilish impositions of sickness and sin. For example, the Gospel of John tells us of an instance when Jesus healed a man who had been blind from his birth. The disciples asked, ''Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?'' Jesus answered, ''Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.'' n2 Then Jesus proceeded to heal the man. Understanding the supremacy of divine Love, he was able to nullify the false belief in an evil cause and effect.

Evil has no validity; and it has no authority other than what we assign to it. For example, one individual may consider a certain object or condition malevolent, whereas the same thing may not affect someone else.

n2 John 9:2, 3

A striking example of this came to light shortly before our family relocated. A dear neighbor, while saying goodbye, remarked: ''I'm so glad things worked out well for you. After your husband planted all that ivy in your front yard I expected something bad to happen to you. I wouldn't dare plant ivy -- it's bad luck, you know.'' Then she smiled and said, ''But you don't believe in bad luck, do you?''

I was grateful she recognized the harmony that Christian Science had brought to our lives, though she never inquired about its teachings. Perhaps she would see, in time, that our recognition of God's power had nullified the fear and suffering we might have experienced if we had believed the same superstition - or believed that superstition, in itself, has any power.

''Divine metaphysics, as revealed to spiritual understanding,'' Mrs. Eddy writes, ''shows clearly that all is Mind, and that Mind is God, omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, -- that is, all power, all presence, all Science. Hence all is in reality the manifestation of Mind.'' n3

Science and Health, p. 275

When we more fully understand the unreality of every belief in evil, and realize more consistently the reality of God, good, not only will we be able to declare, ''But I'm not superstitious!'' We'll increasingly be able to prove it in healthier and more harmonious living. DAILY BIBLE VERSE O taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man that trusteth in him. Psalm 34:8