If ever you wanted a symbol for our current predicament you need look no further than the fact that few of us can see the night sky any more. We are literally cut off from the heavens.
Until the invention of electric lighting human beings were able to see the glories of the night sky in almost every location of the globe. This helped keep them in touch with transcendent reality. At the very least, they were aware of something beyond that was much greater. But now all that is gone. Only in the most remote locations can one see the true magnificence and beauty of the stars and constellations that remind us of the Creator and the fact that his works exceed anything we can possibly imagine. For most of us, especially in towns and cities, a few of the major stars and planets is all we can perceive on a clear night, and the sad truth is that most of us don't even bother to look at those. The recent solar eclipse was a reminder of the impact the movement of the heavens can have on the human soul but the moment passed and we soon got back to our normal shrivelled existence.
The increasing invisibility of the physical heavens is not just a symbol for the complete loss of contact with the spiritual. It is a consequence of it. That invisibility is caused by the products of materialism. A more spiritually focussed consciousness would not wish to destroy our relationship with the sky and stars but to nurture it as a source of inspiration and connection with the image of the divine in creation. We, on the other hand, are happy to trade spiritual connection for material comfort and convenience. I am not suggesting we should return to the hunter/gatherer way of life, but there is surely a happy medium between spiritual awareness and material ease.
The vision of the physical heavens feeds the soul. It is a sign of God's work in a quite different way to the signs on earth. It gives us a sense of the transcendent and the utter vastness of God. That does still exist but in a severely diminished form because we have traded real light, which includes darkness for there was no darkness before light arose to reveal it, with false light. False light shuts out real light just as the artificiality of the modern world shuts out God to the point where even many people who claim to follow God have no idea who or what God is, and simply follow an idol of their own imagining, often one that seems quite happy to co-exist with this world to which God is ultimately subordinate. I am not saying it is the obscuration of the night sky that has done that but the same mindset that has obscured the sky has also obscured God. We need to learn to look up again, and we need a clean space in which to do that.
11 comments:
Spot-on.
When I was young and explicitly materialist, I hated to see the real night sky. It made me feel sick and terrified.
I live between two major cities. The lack of stars is a common complaint. There is essentially only a narrow strip overhead in which any stars can be seen, and then only as you say the major ones. Yet the nearest town is proud to be certified “dark-skies” something-or-other. Actually I think the irony in that term must be intentional- the *sky* is not naturally dark and only looks dark when obscured by false light!
We’re lucky though to have a very *big* sky here with fabulous cloud formations that certainly aid the sense of vastness and transcendence and that helps redirect the mind toward God daily.
The best place I've been to see the night sky was the desert. It seems somewhat ironic that now the only place where the sky is not a desert is the actual desert!
Yes, I grew up near a large desert and that was the only place you could see meteor showers and the like. Now I live near mountains and surprisingly it’s not nearly as good a view. Although you do see shooting stars up there!
Fortunately I live 7,000 feet up in New Mexico and have the good fortune to witness the glories of the night sky marvelous well, excepting those rare occasions when the heavens are blotted out by gray skies 😐
Brought to mind a certain Taoist practice of absorbing and channelling the energy of starlight
Lucky you. Or may be I should say sensible you.
As you probably gather from my blog, except in the summer when it never gets dark at this latitude, I look at the night sky every night; despite that I live near the centre of a city and surrounded by buildings. There is plenty to see, despite the fact that I am missing most of the less brilliant stars.
But cloudy weather obscures most or all of the sky for a lot of the time. On the other hand, it can lead to glorious sunrises or sunsets.
I actually spend - relatively - quite a lot of time looking at the daytime sky and did so even when I had a full time job; because I walked to and from work, and took quite often walks at lunchtime. It was interesting when there was an extraordinary and rare cloud formation a decade ago, to realize that only one other work colleague had noticed it, despite that it was unmissable for anyone who even glanced skywards.
https://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/2016/02/rainbow-clouds-today.html
The near-complete lack of interest in skies (night or day) must be unusual in human history, but of course with materialism everything in the sky is pre-assumed to be dead and purposeless, hence irrelevant - so why bother?
I think that must be it. If the universe out there is pre-assumed to be dead and purposeless it holds no interest, but if it is regarded as in some way alive (I don't mean aliens!) and full of meaning then it becomes profoundly interesting.
In the novel The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco attempts to portray how we come to be deceived into perceiving meaning in a meaningless universe. Of course the novel fails because the only reason it can show that is by having an author who gives it meaning and purpose. But I mention it because one of the least convincing passages is when one character (I think the Abbot) remarks to another (I think the detective monk) how the sky so readily demonstrates the greatness of the Creator. It really takes a deliberate choice to cut yourself off from that. If the PTB succeed in blocking out the sky, it won’t be half as damning as leaving it be while convincing everyone it’s meaningless.
We wouldn't even have a sense of meaninglessness if there was no such thing as the soul just as no hunger without stomach and the existence of food. Atheists don't think things through properly.
"The best place I've been to see the night sky was the desert. "
I have a semi-nonsensical catch phrase culled from some ancient radio comedy: "thus nature balances itself" - which I apply here to the way that different places and climates have their spiritual advantages and disadvantages.
But the best is to be in the place for which your character (and probably heredity) have fitted you. There is a great deal wrong with deserts from my POV, but there certainly are compensations. Likewise the often-cloud-obscured skies of England are a disadvantage from the night sky POV; but there are many advantages in terms of this climate yielding rich and varied vegetation.
Another word for this is "compensation" which is an idea with a core of truth,
(RW Emerson's stimulating essay with this title - https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/73035 ; and I have a recorded talk by your old neighbour Nigel Blair that also argues for this)
Albeit compensation can't be pressed too far without Pollyanna-esque absurdity! In particular, IMO it becomes absurd when applied to races or nations; since I don't think it is spiritually very rational to regard the sufferings or benefits inflicted on some specific individuals, as compensated by sufferings or benefits of other individuals of much earlier or later generations...
Although, even there, maybe this makes sense if reincarnation is assumed, because then the compensation is potentially operative on the same souls.
"the best is to be in the place for which your character (and probably heredity) have fitted you". A good argument against the mass immigration of recent years but this time from the pov of the immigrant and how that might impact him rather than the host nation.
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