We Have Come into Being to Praise--Not to Criticize

We have not come into being to hate or to destroy;
We have come into being to praise, to labor, and to love.

Last week, in talking about the three fundamental actions of being human, to praise, to labor and to love, I focused on praise in relation to the One, the Source and End of All Existence. But, like the other two, labor and love, praise has two directions: toward the One and toward all that is created.

It is not enough to praise the One, That Which Is Without End, That Which is Beautiful, True, and Prefect, the Creating, Judging, Redeeming, and Sanctifying Power. Human existence depends also on praising all that is part of the One, all that flows from and back to the One. Few of us would stand in front of a great painter and criticize her painting. Or in front of a great sculptor and point out all the flaws in his sculpture. Or in front of a weaver and find fault with the pattern or the colors or the looseness or tightness of the weave. Yet that is what we do every day as we go about criticizing friends or family members or strangers—whether their clothes or their bodies or their actions or failures to act or habits or their wishes and dreams—or a landscape or the weather or the food we are served. This isn’t enough that. That isn’t enough this. We find it so easy to find the one flaw in all that is good. We do it out of habit, without thinking, as if it were our right to cast judgment in this way on everyone and everything.

We criticize so often, so carelessly. It seems as if it is nothing. Yet to criticize the works of a great artist is a grave offense. It means we are not acknowledging the good, not appreciating the beauty; we are not being grateful. But there is another deleterious effect we often forget about as we rush to give our opinion. (Our opinion! How consequential our preferences are! How important we are, we who can pass judgment on all things, with our profound knowledge, our wide perspective, our deep experience of the many ways a good life can be lived!). Here is the great harm we do with our careless flinging of judgments: our rush to criticize, our failure to praise, covers what we see with a dark, oily film, which makes it harder for others to see the beauty underneath. And it also makes it hard for that creature we have covered with our criticisms to breathe out all its beauty and goodness; like a seal or a seabird after an oil spill, it begins to die a slow, painful and cruel death, unless someone comes and removes that film of oil.

One of the stories Idries Shah tells in Tales of the Dervishes reveals the ingratitude and harm of criticism. It also points to the foolishness of making judgments of any kind from our limited perspective.

An idiot looked at a browsing camel. He said to it: “Your appearance is awry. Why is this so?”
The camel replied: “In judging the impression made, you are attributing a fault to that which shaped the form. Be aware of this! Do not consider my crooked appearance a fault.
‘Get away from me, by the shortest route. My appearance is thus for function, for a reason. The bow needs the bentness as well as the straightness of the bowstring.
‘Fool, begone! An ass’s perception goes with an ass’s nature.’

The next time you are about to open your mouth to criticize, remember the talking camel.

Try to go for a day, just one day, without criticizing anything, another human being, yourself, your life, the world around you. It’s a hard, hard habit to break. Our little selves, our false egos love this game. It makes us feel so superior. But try. And instead of looking for fault, just look at all that exists, look without judgment or expectation or preference, look with deep acceptance of and appreciation for what it is, for what is. And give thanks for it.

That would be a day of praise.

Is Astrology a Victimless Crime? Do We Need “A Warning Against Astrology”?

It’s not just astronomers and skeptics who love to bash astrology.  Theologians, ethicists, and philosophers do, too.  Yet for many people, even those who agree with the criticisms of astrology as unscientific, illogical, a convenient escape from personal responsibility, a silly waste of time, or a scheme to make money selling people something absolutely useless, astrology still holds an irresistible appeal.  Consulting their horoscope for fun every day is one of their guilty pleasures. 

I want to reflect on three questions:

• Why do people read their horoscope?
• What are the theological or spiritual objections to astrology?
• Is astrology harmless?

What are we looking for when we read a horoscope?
Here’s my confession (and it’s not an easy one to make):  I don’t know why most people read horoscopes—for fun?  for diversion?; I do know why I have read them.  There have been times in my life when I frantically consulted three, four, five or more daily or weekly,  monthly or yearly horoscopes.  I felt guilty doing it, and stupid.  I agreed with all the criticisms of it.  Yet I did it.   Why?  I was consumed by fear and anxiety.  I wanted control over my life. I wanted to know something about what would happen, even to think I knew something, to calm me.  I wanted to find a reason to hope, or simply to find reassurance.  In certain moments of crises, after a string of difficult years, when I feared in a post-traumatic-stress-syndrome way that my day or week would surely shock me with one more sorrow or catastrophe I could not have imagined, I would read and read—sometimes for an hour or more—until I found a horoscope that “promised” an end to pain or the beginning of something new,  or help of any sort. Sometimes I read until I found a warning about something bad happening--a legal run-in or personal conflict or financial challenge. That would calm me down. If something painful or difficult was going to happen, I wanted to know.  Knowing about a trauma before hand seemed far better to me than living in uncertaintiy, waiting for the next blow and not knowing when it would come, from what direction, or from whom, or why. If I knew it was coming, I could handle it, I thought. It was those unpredictable assaults, out of nowhere, that I couldn't live with. Reading “predictions” was my anti-anxiety drug of choice.  I needed it.  I couldn’t get through the day without it.

This is an embarrassing admission on so many levels, but especially on the spiritual level.  Yes, it meant that I was experiencing a lot of grief and  trauma and was not acting like my normal self.  But I don’t want to use this as a dodge.  What it really meant was that I was not trusting in the One.  I could not live in uncertainty, with seemingly nothing to hang on to. Why didn’t I just  pray and read the Psalms, as I otherwise did, for reassurance and comfort and a sense of community?  I am not really sure.  I think I was desperate for something that seemed more immediate, more concrete, more practical, a secret message meant for me.  This lack of radical trust made me flail my way across the Web looking for comfort and hope. 

What are the theological responses to astrology?

In the eleventh century the Sufi mystic and theologian Ghazali objected to astrology because it denied the absolute dependence humankind must have on God at every moment in life.  God directly causes every occasion, he argues, which is divine providence, and we are to trust absolutely in God, link ourselves directly to the ultimate source and ground of every act or event or situation, and not look to proximate or intermediate causes like stars and planets.  In the twelfth century, the Jewish mystic and theologians Moses Maimonides argued similarly, saying that believing in astrology denies the providence of God and also freedom of the will.

In the sixteenth century the Christian mystic and theologian John Calvin wrote a treatise called “A Warning Against Astrology.” He raises many objections to consulting horoscopes, including Ghazali’s and Maiominides's main points—that it displaces our trust in the only trustworthy One and therefore detracts from the glory of God who providentially cares for every detail of creation; and it denies our moral responsibilty.

But the criticism Calvin offers that always surprises me for its practical, modern sensibility, is this:  Astrology is anti-community.  God, he argues, placed the sun, moon, and stars in creation so that human beings can tell time and seasons and make plans with one another about when to worship together, when to come to courts of law together to settle disputes, when to meet for other social occasions.  They are community-building tools.  What if one were to consult his or her horoscope on the way to court and find it is not an auspicious day, and turn back?  What if one’s personal chart argues against one observing the Sabbath or a festival day?  To use God’s creations in this way to deny God and the image of God in our fellow human beings.   It isolates us from others.  Trusting in the One, however, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, links us to all other creatures, all the rest of creation—for that is part of our purpose here—to escape the prison of the self and experience communion with others.  

Is astrology harmless?
Many people make light of astrology, saying, “Oh, I don’t really believe it!  It’s just fun. It’s harmless.”  Our common greeting to one another, Good luck! Mazel tov! suggests how much we have absorbed the idea of astrological influences, even if we reject outright causation.  Mazal means a planet and its influence, so we're wishing for good astrological influences for others.

Maybe it's harmless to wish someone Mazal tov (instead of saying, "Ezrat Hashem, God's Help" or Retzon HaShem or Insha'Allah, God Willing).  But I’m not sure astrology is harmless.  Just as prostitution is often called a victimless crime, yet often leads to great harm, so astrology can cause harm.  It erodes one’s trust in the One. It corrodes one’s sense of relatedness to others and our responsibility, for one’s own actions and for the care of others.  It can keep us trapped in fear and anxiety, dependent on remedies that can never assuage our fears but only postpone or mask them.  It can prevent us from growing toward deeper trust and faith that bring the peace that passes understanding.  
 
Astrology isn’t “of the devil,” and consulting one’s horoscope isn’t evil--any more than anything else that tempts us away from depending on the One and befriending all that the One creates and embraces.  But it’s not harmless.

Dare “To See with Two Eyes”

Mystics of all traditions speak of double-seeing, looking at the world from two perspectives simultaneously, from the point of view of the spiritual reality and from the point of view of our limited material reality.  Ibn ‘Arabi  calls this “to see with two eyes.”  It’s not easy.  It takes practice to recognize the difference between the ways of seeing, avoid getting stuck in one or other, and walking around seeing from both perspectives.  William Blake was an expert at it.  

Blake was well-known and often ridiculed for his double-seeing, his visionary experience of the world he shared with other human beings.  In the biography The Life of William Blake, Alexander Gilchrist records this story of an encounter Blake had with a woman, as told by Blake himself:

“The other evening” Blake said in his usual quiet way, “I came to a meadow, and at the farther corner of it I saw a fold of lambs.  Coming nearer, the ground blushed with flowers; and the wattled cote and its wooly tenants were of an exquisite pastoral beauty.  but I looked again, and it proved to be no living flock, but beautiful sculpture.”  The lady, thinking this a capital holiday-show for her children, eagerly interposed, “I beg pardon, Mr.. Blake, but may I ask where you saw this?” “Here, madam,” answered Blake, touching his forehead.  (pp. 337-338)

Gilchrist points out that Blake was not mad:  He not only knew the difference between the reality perceived by most people and the phenomena he saw, he "would candidly confess [his visions] were not literal matters of fact.” (338) He understood these spiritual appearances to come from the faculty of the imagination.  Not imagination as we think of it:  the invention of empty fantasies or fictions. But imagination as the power of sensing subtler realities, realities, than we usually perceive. Gilchrist notes: “He said the things imagination saw were as much realities as were gross and tangible facts He would tell his artist-friends, ‘You have the same faulty as I (the visionary), only you do not trust or cultivate it.  You can see what I do, if you choose.” (339)

Whether we’re artists or not, his counsel is valuable.  Don’t get stuck in a particular literalistic view, whether it be a scientific or religious one. Trust and cultivate that power of imagination that expands our view of the universe and connects us more deeply to all.