H is for.....

A while back I wrote a little piece on some Horoscopes, it was not one of my greatest efforts. indeed it was a bit of laziness on a day when I wanted a post but didn't have much in the way of inspiration. At the time one of Christian friends gently chastised me about this post and encouraged me to write a follow up on a Christian attitude to such things.   Since then I have been meaning to revisit the subject, but have found it's not quite as simple as I first thought.   Of course most people, whether Christian or not, adopt the view that these things are simply a "bit of fun" certainly I don't think any credibility can be assigned to the basic "Newspaper Horoscope" until they actually manage a prediction that comes true.   I will quite happily eat my words if one twelfth of the population of the UK is run over by a number nineteen bus tomorrow.   And, right now I know there is somebody out there thinking "Well you're a Virgo so you would think that wouldn't you"

Serious Astrology is all about looking at the stars, their relationships with one another at particular times and the drawing conclusions about a person's character and future from them.   The Bible does expressly forbid divination, sorcery and the Occult or hidden arts Deuteronomy 18:10-14   We should be listening only to God Deuteronomy 18:15 and rejecting other forms of guidance or revelation Acts 16:16-18

So the Bible tells us that Astrology is wrong (not inaccurate but wrong!) in a couple of ways, it is a way of putting faith in something other than God, if you like, it is setting up another god in opposition.   Of course it is also a form of divination, and look where that got Saul.   I am no Roman Catholic, but I think the Catechism puts it pretty well

2116 All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to "unveil" the future.⁴⁸ Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honour, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone.


Regardless of the reliability of the predictions I think the Christian attitude is much more a question of, well, attitude.   I think it is largely a question of who you look to for guidance and what you put faith in, of course as a Christian I look to Jesus as the focus of my faith and to God for my guidance.

On the other hand if you are not a Christian, then look out for that number nineteen bus!

At another time I put together a post that at the time I called Looking Forward, although not directly concerned with astrology or horoscopes it was about a Christian attitude to the future and how we should retain hope, and Hope is another subject that I want to revisit, but for all sorts of different reasons.   Several times recently I have been talking to my Mother about life, she is pretty much fed up with it and it becomes wearying to try to keep her spirits up.   

A while ago I spent a lot of time talking with her about what it means to be a Christian and have Hope for the future, even if that Hope lies beyond the grave.   I used a couple of my lady customers as examples of people who maintained hope right to the end of their lives.   It was directly after hearing of the death of one of these ladies that while doing a little tidying up I found an old rejected ring of my daughter's, it is a simple cooper ring with the one word HOPE on it.   This seemed to either be serendipitous or a sign, either way I decided to start wearing the ring.


I am still wearing it several weeks later, not entirely out of either affection or affectation, it was the Friday after I started to wear it that I shut my hand in the van door.   Now around three weeks later the swelling has almost gone down enough to try to take it off.

So looking back at Horoscopes, and Hope, maybe H is for HINDSIGHT