It’s your lucky day

Today might be your lucky day.

At least, that’s what believers in the whole 7/7/07 phenomenon think.

Consider the significance of the number: There are seven days in the week, Seven Wonders of the World, Seven Seas, Stephen Covey’s “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,” The Spokesman-Review’s “7” … OK, you get the idea.

Obviously, seven is a symbolic number. It’s also a sacred number, according to many religious traditions. Not to mention a lucky number, for the superstitious, the optimists and others.

So when an auspicious date like 7/7/07 comes around, you don’t have to be playing the slot machines or boarding a Boeing 777 jet to take notice.

Throughout the world, people have deemed 7/7/07 as the luckiest day of the century and the perfect day to get married, get rich, get noticed and even get God.

Lucky in love

According to TheKnot.com, an online bridal community, an estimated 38,000 couples will be walking down the aisle today – more than three times the 12,000 that get married on a typical Saturday in July.

“My fiancé won’t ever forget our anniversary,” said Valerie Eastwood, who’s marrying Austin P’Pool today at the historic Greenbriar Inn in Coeur d’Alene.

Engaged for seven months, the couple don’t believe all the superstition surrounding the number seven. But considering the unusual circumstances of how they met – on Terceira, a remote Portugese island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean – “any old Saturday won’t do,” said Eastwood. “Such a cool relationship needed a cool date for a wedding.”

Like Greenbriar, other wedding facilities in the region have been booked solid on this day for more than a year.

“People love the number seven,” said Darcy Knauf of Greenbriar Catering. “They think of it as a blessed day, a lucky day and a great day to get married.”

Greenbriar will cater 10 different events today. The popular facility had no choice but to turn away more than two dozen couples who wanted 7/7/07 as their wedding date. “We’re just overloaded right now,” Knauf said in mid-June. “We’re having to refer people to our favorite competitors.”

To prepare for the big day, Greenbriar has hired four times as many staff – chefs, servers, people who decorate and set up for the weddings in the elegant interiors and surroundings of the 1908 mansion.

The Hitching Post, also in Coeur d’Alene, will have another minister as well as a second room for all the weddings that are expected to take place today.

“It’s looking busy, extremely busy,” said Donald Knapp, pastor at the Hitching Post in Coeur d’Alene. “Even though the number (of weddings) will be large, we’re still going to do our very best to make every ceremony meaningful for the couple and hope that it will be special for them.”

Today also will be a hectic one for the Wedding Chapel in Coeur d’Alene. Dozens of couples called in recent months hoping to get married there, but most had to be turned away, according to Lisa Andrews, who will be working extra hours on a day that also happens to be her 47th birthday.

To prepare for the onslaught of couples seeking last-minute marriage licenses, the Kootenai County Recorders Office – the only one in the state that’s open on Saturdays – has two staffers working today instead of just one.

Really, really lucky in love

If the couples getting married today feel lucky because of all the sevens in their wedding date, they might be just a tad envious of Dick and Rayleen Alberts of Hayden, Idaho.

The couple got married on July 7, 1977. And, their church wedding officially began at 7:07 p.m.

“It worked out perfectly,” said Rayleen Alberts, recalling how they forgot their marriage certificate, which resulted in the seven-minute delay. “I’m a person who always looks for patterns and seven has always been a lucky number for me.”

The couple will celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary today by renewing their vows aboard an Alaskan cruise ship. Although they don’t attribute it all to their wedding date, Rayleen Alberts thinks they’ve had lots of luck along the way. They not only have three children and five grandkids, she said, she’s also a cancer survivor.

“We have lots of blessings in the Lord,” she said. “That’s better than luck, I think.”

God’s number

Speaking of blessings, seven is also a significant number to many faiths.

According to Muslim tradition, the Prophet Muhammad ascended into the seven heavens to come into contact with the divine. In Buddhism, seven symbolizes the ascent of the seven cosmic stages toward the spiritual center.

For Christians, the number seven is characteristic of how God organizes heaven, David Frankfurter, professor of religious studies and history at the University of New Hampshire told Religion News Service. God completes creation in seven days. There are seven cardinal sins, seven virtues, and a host of apocalyptic signs in Revelation that come in groups of seven – seven churches and seven seals, for example.

“In the Bible it’s symbolic of perfection,” Frankfurter said, “and what Americans have done is kind of turned it into a lucky number.”

Locally, evangelical Christians will worship God and fall to their knees in prayer at several religious gathering.

At Coeur d’Alene City Park, a concert called “Explosion 7-7-7” is expected to draw hundreds of youths, according to Simon Lelyuk of Salvation Ministry, an evangelistic group made up of both English- and Russian-speaking teens.

“On this date, we think God will touch people with the Holy Spirit,” said Lelyuk, who lives in Spokane. “I think it’s God’s number. It’s my favorite number. It’s a great date, much better than 6/6/2006.”

In Spokane, people also are expected to meet at the Healing Rooms Conference Center for an all-day revival featuring live bands and speakers. The local event is part of “The Call,” an interdenominational prayer gathering that will take place at dozens of cities throughout the country and is the culmination of a 40-day fast.

In the Bible, seven was the number representing a covenant, explained Pam Walker of Healing Rooms Ministries. “We want to renew our covenant with God as a nation,” she explained.

Global warming too?

While evangelical Christians gather to pray, environmental activists are using 7/7/07 to warn people about the dangers of global warming.

Today, an organization called SOS – a partnership between concern producer Kevin Wall, former Vice President Al Gore and the Alliance for Climate Protection – has organized a 24-hour, seven-continent concern series to bring awareness to the climate crisis. An expected 2 billion people worldwide will get involved.

At least three sites in the Inland Northwest have registered as “Friends of Live Earth” by hosting parties featuring a satellite feed of the concerts: the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist and two households – one on Spokane’s South Hill and another in Coeur d’Alene.

Local radio station KXLY-FM also awarded listener Justin Brown with a River Road Trip to the Live Earth Concert happening today at New Jersey’s Giants Stadium.

Lucky guy

If you think Brown’s lucky to win a trip to Live Earth, some would argue that Tommie Tindell takes the cake.

Literally, since it’s his birthday. His 77th, as a matter of fact.

“It’s a good sign,” said the Othello, Wash., resident, who plans to celebrate the big day with hamburgers and hot dogs at a picnic with about a dozen of his closest friends. “I’m not a gambling man, but I’ve always felt lucky.”

Tindell, who recently volunteered to serve coffee and cookies at an I-90 rest area to raise scholarship money for local kids, has been wearing a red, white and blue T-shirt and matching baseball cap with the message: “77 on 7-7-7.”

“Can I take you to Vegas?” some people asked after commenting on the fortuitous date.

A Texas native and a retired technical sergeant for the Air Force, Tindell has no plans to hit the casino that day or even buy a lottery ticket. The well-known community volunteer said he’ll settle for a slice of his wife’s angel food cake, only without the 77 candles – “I don’t want to start a fire,” says Wilma Tindell. He might also listen to one of his favorite country songs, Montgomery Gentry’s “I’m a lucky man.”

OK, maybe not so lucky

Despite all the hype, some will advise you not to bet all your cash on number seven.

Renate Herrmann, a Spokane numerologist, insists that by her readings, the combination of all those sevens isn’t lucky at all.

“Seven is a spiritual number, but too many sevens isn’t good,” says Herrmann, a native of Germany who has studied numerology since 1983. “It’s negative.”

However, children born today won’t be subjected to a life of misery. By adding the numbers together in the entire date (7 + 7 + 2 + 0 + 0 + 7, “You can’t forget the 2 in 2007,” she insists), you get a total of 23. Add two and three together and the “destiny number” is five, which Herrmann says is associated with patience, independence, travel and good business sense.

Obviously, people aren’t heeding the numerologists and getting married anyway.

So here’s our wish for all the couples walking down the aisle on 7/7/07: Good luck and don’t believe all the stuff about the seven-year itch.