Monday, November 8, 2010

Projection


It is a lovely painting; quite the soothing scene. Rich colors, maternal love, the abundance of nature and the suggestion that around us is light and warmth if only we had the awareness to sense it. And, it is not just nature and love that is being celebrated in this painting. It is also the ability of humans to create beauty in our lives. Notice the embroidery on the mother’s cloak. It is a sublime beauty created by hours and hours of applied craftsmanship which can only be acquired after years of dedication and diligence. It is a painting of how things sometimes are, how things can be and of how things should more often be. Well, that is what I see.

What does, what can such a painting tell us about the artist who created it? One might feel confident ascribing to the artist qualities such as sensitivity, passion, gentleness and awareness of the importance of harmony both in human relationships and between humans and nature. We might attribute to this artist a deep understanding of human nature, the desire of humans for peace, tranquility, safety and tenderness. We might think this artist to be a great humanitarian, but perhaps quietly, humbly; one who does not seek the empty accolades of fame; a person who knows what’s important in life.

What do works of art tell us about their creators? That is the question I seek to address in this essay.
Here are some scenes from nature. What do they tell us, what can they tell us about their creator?








What do, what can these pictures tell us of the One who brought them to be? What attributes would we ascribe to the Artist, the Designer who crafted such beauty? What we know, or more accurately believe and think we know about God comes only from our experiences. We cannot know anything or craft any belief without the chisel experience; our own, or the experiences of others shared with us.

I have been to the Grand Canyon and sat upon its rim; feet dangling beyond the cliff face, the next step a mile below. I sat there one late afternoon twenty years ago feeling the fading warmth of the setting sun on my face as a cool dry breeze tingled my skin. Bathed in the still warm yet cooling colors cascading on the ancient canyon walls I sat muted by the awe of a dying day’s fading light. I watched the pumpkin colored full moon rise shattering the horizon to start its nightly celestial amble. Slowly growing smaller and whiter shade by shade to become a beacon of silvery white.

That was my experience twenty years ago. I have shared it with you. Perhaps now, even though you were not there with me, you too have a sliver of that moon, a wisp of that breeze from long ago dancing over your skin. Stories are a way we share our experiences. They can and do impact us, often deeply. In fact, it only takes a bit of contemplation to recognize the deep impact stories have had on our history, traditons, assumed knowledge and decision making both as individuals and as societies. Orson Wellls’ radio play, War of the Worlds on Halloween night, 1939 spawned panic in those who did not know its fictitious nature. A story need not be true to have impact. But, as anyone who knows a fisherman understands, often stories, even those born from a real event can quickly depart from an semblance of reality. In short order they can bare only the most remote resemblence to the reality they purport to portray. Even meticulously kept hisorical records can not convery the truth of a situation, but only, if well constructed simply point in its most general direction. And, the intent of thestory teller is essential to discern. Stories are powerful tools for shaping the pubic consciousness and are often used to advance a private agenda. Stories and paintings do tell us something, but it is almost always something different then we might initially conclude.

The two and only two ways to know anything about anything is through personal or shared experience. This includes our supposed knowledge of God. What we think we know about God comes from human experience. And, that experience is always interpreted. One influence on how we interpret our experiences is through projection. For the purpose of this essay, I am defining projection as the ascribing of qualities present or desired within one’s self to an external entity or object. This is a very common human activity and often it is deliteriously practiced both fervently and without awareness. This is why eye witnesses to any event never see, cannot see the same thing. Every experience is interpreted, crafted and modified by the one who is having the experience. The termobjective observer is a fantasy. Mere observation makes one a participant in the event. This holds true for everything from car crashes to the behavior of quantum particles. Observation affects outcome.

So, when we look at nature, at paintings, at anything, then make judgments about the artist or creator of the scene, we are in fact engaged in projection and the attributes we notice are not the ones of the artist, but ones squarely located within ourselves. A painting tells us nothing about the artist who painted it beyond the artist’s bare ability to paint. We can know nothing of the artists character, desires or political affiliation. Is the artist a person of faith? Is the artist kind, honest and compassionate? No painting can ever tell us those things. Even author’s diligently crafting their own autobiographies wanting to be known and understood never communicate themselves perfectly. There is too much interpretation occuring, both in the writer and the reader for two minds ever to completely meet.

When it comes to God it is no different. We cannot know God from our experiences, or those shared by others, from God’s creations. It may be common to look to the heavens on a starry night and think how kind and loving an entity must be who created such magnificance, but the commonality of these reactions attributes nothing to their accuracy.

Nature is full of beauty. Often its sights, sounds, smells and tactility inspire awe. But, taking those experiences and using them as data for the attributes of God is an error. Through projection, it is not the artist or creator that is revealed in our responses to art or experience; it is we ourselves who are revealed.
The painting I shared with you at the beginning of this essay was painted by Adolf Hitler. The painting does not, cannot tell us anything more about its painter than the artist’s bare ability to paint. Everything we see in that painting beyond painting ability comes from our own biases at work in the way we experience and interpret it. It is entirely internal. It is projection.

In exactly the same way, nature and creation tell us absolutely nothing about God. The fact that there are countless volumes describing what is believed about God, God’s nature, God’s desires and God’s presummed plan endows no credence to the accuracy of those assertions, no matter how passionately presented. Dressing them up in gold leaf and adorning them with calligraphy and iconography lend nothing more than the appearance of credulity. Ferver, the desperate deisre for something to be true or even the failure to find convincing alernatives to a cherished belief can not bring into greater focus images that have no existence “out there”. When we look at a waterfall and see falling water, we are seeing a waterfall. But, when we see beauty, power and the hand of God, those things are products of our own minds. They have no existence outside of ourselves, they are in fact squarely fixed, whether one realizes it or not, in the architecture of our own thoughts. Beliefs about God are based on a mental mistake. Based on, among other things, a lack of awareness of the mechanism of projection. It is a fact that everything you know is incomplete, skewed and flawed. Every belief anchored only in the wind. This irreversible condition calls for penetrating awareness, honest humility and heroic compassion. The next time you think you know what you are looking at and what that sight is telling you, do not fail to also look at what your mind is doing.