Thanks for coming back! Comment, share, whatever you do. Happy Eclipse Eve and happy reading.
I wasn’t much for science in school, and to be honest, I’m not sure what a solar eclipse is. Is that the one where the sun is in front? Or the moon blocks out the sun? Is it a matter of language, the noun “eclipse” describing the adjective “solar”, or vice versa? I guess I will know it when I see it. Or maybe I won’t. I’m not sure it is anything more than a “oh, cool” moment for me.
But for several inmates housed in the Woodbourne correctional facility of New York, the eclipse is of maximum importance. Six inmates filed a suit in federal court against the state correctional department for prospective violation of their rights to religious freedom and expression. The inmates claimed that the eclipse is an event of religious significance for many, and that the newly implemented lockdown would prevent them from practicing their faith through observance.
The AP reported that several different faiths are represented among the practitioners, including “a Baptist, a Muslim, a Seventh-Day Adventist, and two practitioners of Santeria, as well as an atheist.”
The complaint mentions the eclipse-esque phenomenons that accompanied Jesus’s death and the death of Muhammad’s son. I’m sure it means something to those who work in Santeria with their divination and blood sacrifices often depending on nature. To the atheist, all things mean something when nothing does.
It was a case for those interested in lawfare. Woodbourne is operated and funded, at least in part, by the state of New York. The inmates’ essential claim was that the state was violating the First Amendment guaranteeing citizens that “Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”
There were complicating factors in the case. Does a lockdown mandated by the state’s correctional department constitute Congress making a law? Does the fact that the lockdown happened to include the date and time of the eclipse constitute a prohibition on free exercise of religion? Does the incarcerated status of these individuals and their crimes change the way the public and the courts view their claims? Does the time frame and the simplicity of the complaint call for a lesser threshold of scrutiny?
As a completely amateur law scholar who will begin law school in the fall, I can only make an attempt at answering these questions. The Supreme Court ruled against the US Postal Service two years ago in a case where USPS mandated its workers abide by their scheduled work hours on Sunday. They found that USPS did act as an arm of the government, and that their actions violated the freedom of workers to express their religion.
The status of the inmates should not affect their right to partake in the spoils of the First Amendment, and with the USPS case and several others acting as precedent, the case was on the road to affirming their religious freedom. Given the timeframe, however, the state of New York, and the prison by proxy, entered into a settlement with the inmates to allow for the viewing.
I am not so much interested in the outcome of the case. What strikes me is the lack of clarity as to the veracity of the faithfulness of the inmates. Legally speaking, it doesn't matter whether they are actually practicing Muslims who are so reverent that they venerate the death-weather of the Prophet’s son. It doesn’t matter if, in the absence of chickens to disembowel, one actually must consult the sun’s patterns to practice Santeria. To be fair, as a practicing Baptist, I don’t know any Baptists who are adamant about seeing the eclipse for genuine spiritual fulfillment other than the obligatory murmur of “Look how cool God is.” Although, the entire student body of the private Baptist school where I teach will witness. So perhaps I find myself legless and standing.
The skeptic that hovers just beneath the surface has serious doubts as to the veracity of the faiths of these men. Bias, maybe. I prefer to think of it as an understanding of human nature. To the person who does not get to see the heavenly bodies on their own daily prerogative, the once in a lifetime opportunity to see them arranged just so is something worth fighting for. Perhaps using the fundamental right to worship as one sees fit in order to obtain the perhaps even more fundamental right to direct one’s gaze where he pleases, to stare at the sun, is incredibly human.
And isn’t that what worship is anyway? The directing of one’s gaze? To look at God or woman or cosmos?
There are new fitness gurus who claim staring at the sun is helpful, that it does things to your eyes and brain that cannot be mimicked anywhere, better than coffee. Huberman (before he was assassinated this past week) and King (as in Liver) and Brecka and the rest of the ancestral living guys claim that staring at the sun is a must. It is healthy and beautiful, even manly. Is anyone surprised?
Our culture permits people to demand treatment commensurate with who they claim to be, without evidence. An inmate claims to be a Baptist and he must be permitted to see the eclipse without showing his work. A man claims to be a woman and he must be accommodated with a place on the team or makeup sponsorships. A child is declared a winner and we give him a trophy as he smiles and trips over his feet while another winner drops mustard onto his jersey from his hotdog lunch of champions. The American student writes papers about how evil the American system that allowed her into the Ivy League is, we publish them and clap. The celebrity demands his picture be taken unless he desires it not to be taken here and now. And on and on.
It could be the pendulum has swung to the far end of individuality. Is the final frontier of freedom of individual expression, to be who you are, actually the freedom to be who you are not? Or is the problem more accurately described as a false balance between societal affirmation and individual expression? Does the American university student demand to be treated as a victim of America because there is clout in certain social circles for doing so? Has her individuality been molded by society?
In the Church, we have the same problem. Our justification is worse and far more difficult to unwind. When Christians demand to be treated in accordance with their identity, they term it “calling.” They say God has called them to lead worship, to move to (insert name of country with an abnormally warm climate) and work with orphans, to start a church or write Christian fiction or marry that woman. It does not matter, in most cases, that the person cannot sing, is allergic to the sun and hates kids, is not a good leader, cannot write or that the woman thinks hes a creep. God has called, so we must go.
When church functions at its best, the community evaluates the calling and says, “Yes, thanks be to God. We have seen that in you for a while and we can help you get there.” Or, perhaps more importantly, the collective shaking of the head resounds as the person struggles to carry a note, and the gentle reminder of a mentor says, “She’s just not that into you.”
More often though, even in the Church, we allow those who determine their own identity to stare at the sun. To be treated as if their expression is legitimate. Christian bookstores, the ones that are left, are full of Christian writers who were never told, “You're not actually very good at this.” Perhaps that is why there aren't actually Christian bookstores left.
Sometimes, staring at the sun is transformative. What if the atheist housed at Woodbourne sees the eclipse in all its glory and realizes that the heavens do in fact declare the glory of God. Sometimes when we give someone the treatment they demand, it shows them the flaws in the demand. I am reminded of a Bible story where a son demands that his father treat him as an orphan. When he squanders his inheritance, it changes him.
Sometimes the sun is an affirmation. Maybe it is the key to becoming a real and bonafide Baptist. I hope to find out soon.
Despite what the new fitness gurus claim, it has long been asserted that staring at the sun can cause blindness. My school bought all the students approved glasses lest their eyes scorch under the weight of celestial majesty. When we are allowed access to the spoils of our identity without any sort of burden of proof, I think it can make some of us blind to who we truly are, to who we were meant to be. The man who demands the spoils of a career often loses his family, blind to the role he was born to play in the lives of his children. He does not know what he is missing, but his children do. His subconscious and innermost self do. The same with the rest. In directing our gaze, there is a tacit agreement that we will be blind to those things we have chosen not to see.
Still worse, there is the fact that Nietzsche knew all too well. When we stare into the abyss, it stares back into us. When we stare into the light, it illuminates all that is within. I am not certain that any of us, myself included, will like the things we see when that happens. The light reveals are inadequacies, are falseness, or worse, our tendency to demand far too little. Often when we are given the treatment we think we deserve, we long to shut the lights off again.
So the inmates can have their sun. In America, we still have the right to worship the way we want to. And thank God.
But often, what that means is that we worship gods that look an awful lot like us, and we demand validation of that worship. Come with us to the temple and see the idol we have made of ourselves!
That’s the thing about the sun though. We will burn out long before it will.