The school where I work has me teaching a class on Biblical astronomy this semester. It really is an ‘out of this world’ class. With a simple program we can reconstruct what the magis saw in the sky 2,000 years ago.
As we look at the different celestial objects we have to make the difference between stars and planets. Even though they seem to be travelling the sky, stars are stationary. We are the ones on planet earth who move. Planets on the contrary travel the sky. That’s where the word ‘planet’ comes from: ‘The wandering ones.’ This week I was studying the phenomena of ‘retrograde motion’, (click on the link for youtube explanation). Retrograde motion is when a planet in the sky seems to move backward and then resume its forward course. Planets travel in a circular orbit in one direction. They do not change the direction of their course at will. Why then does it dsometime seem that they change direction? That’s actually it. They ‘SEEM’ to change direction, but do they really? This seeming change of direction is an optical illusion created by the fact that we reference the movement of that planet from the perspective of other far away stationery stars. The travelling speed of the earth, accompanied with that of the planet in question, against the backdrop of these stationary stars give us the illusion that the planet is changing the direction of its course. It is in fact the backdrop of these stars which give us the illusion of progress or regress of the planet in question. Studying this phenomenon made me wonder. How can we claim to rightfully judge and assess static situations and intelligent people, when we can be so easily fooled by inanimate object? We usually judge people and situations against the standard of the backdrop of others. We establish judgement according to certain self-imposed baselines. Our conclusions therefore are mostly dependant of the backdrop we use, and as in the case of the retrograde motion, we can be fooled by our own chosen standard unit of measurement. As we are unable to see the depth of the cosmos with the naked eye, we are also unable see the fulness of the depth of the human soul. It is a part of life that we have to judge and assess situations and people. As we do, we may ask ourselves how we would fare were we to be judged against the backdrops and standard we use to judge others. Do we also use the same hard backdrop when we judge ourselves? Maybe this is why we have been rightfully advised, ‘"Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.”
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