John Lennon said, "God is a concept by which we measure our pain." What he meant is that the more pain you're in, the bigger a god you need. I've noticed this before, that it's in times of trouble that we are most likely to call on external forces. Many humans look to spirits, others to friends, others to family. It's all the same in the end; we need each other, and we need each other more poignantly when there is something so amiss that we can't handle it alone.