Celebrate His Praise

I want to go back to the beginning of Gleanings XIV:

"...magnify, before the entire creation, the name of God, and celebrate His praise, in such wise that all created things may be regenerated and made new."

What does this mean? What does it look like in our daily life?

Well, what does it mean to magnify something? Make it bigger, or more accurately make it appear larger than it is. Hmm. How could we possibly make "the name of God" larger than it actually is? That seems kind of daunting. Perhaps the Guardian was using the more archaic definition, to extol and glorify. Ok. That seems more reasonable.  But maybe the modern definition also has something to it, in that it calls attention to something that is easily overlooked.

Let's try that for our first step. After all, it seems that most people overlook the various names of God in creation these days.  We tend to forget about things like compassion, generosity, mercy, forgiveness. We even see a growing disregard for knowledge and wisdom. Perhaps we really do need to extol the Name of God and make it more evident for everyone to see it. Sounds good.

Actually, all this sounds a lot like virtue praising. I never, for example, told my son "Oh, you're such a good kid." Instead, I praised an action he did, and then named the virtue he was demonstrating. "Wow. When you gave that child a grape, you showed such generosity. Well done. That's great."

And by praising the virtue, aren't we praising a name of God? God, the Most Generous?

Thinking about it many years later, I realize that this made the other children in the area, and probably some adults, too, more aware of generosity as a virtue. It magnified it in their sight. Hmm. Never quite realized that until just now.

But what about the second part? "Celebrate His praise"?

Are we celebrating Baha'u'llah's praise of God? Or perhaps our own? Both?

What if we read it as if "His praise" is the object of celebration? That would mean that every time we encounter the praise of God, for "His" seems to refer to God, we should celebrate it. What would that look like, though?

I was talking with my wife about this and realized that in our society we generally don't celebrate the praise of God. Most people tend to ridicule it. Just imagine the born-again Christian who yells out "Praise God" every five minutes.  It comes across as a cliche these days. We are so inundated with those folk who are fanatical in their belief, or at least appear that way, that we tend to deride them when they praise God. In fact, we encounter it so often with those for whom God is an empty word on their lips that it is hard to tell when it is authentic.

Here it seems that Baha'u'llah is telling us we should celebrate it. Why?

Because God is worthy of praise, and the recognition of that is, in itself, worthy of celebration. "Good job! You recognize the importance of praising God. That's great."

Now, it's worth noting that there is a way we should be offering this celebration. We need to do it in such a manner "that all created things may be regenerated and made new." If we do it in a manic way, or a fanatical way, or even worse, in a hypocritical way, then those around us tend not to be "regenerated and made new." They tend to be turned off. Just witness the eye rolls that occur.

My wife made the comment that it was a like a mathematical equation. She initially likened it to addition. "Magnifying His name + celebrating the praise of God = everything being regenerated and made new". But that didn't feel quite right to either of us. So we added a third addend, "in such wise", but that didn't quite feel right either. Then we took that last one and put it in as a multiplier, instead.

(Magnify His name + celebrate His praise) * (in such wise) = Everything being regenerated and made new.

Why was this last step important? Because the manner in which we do that has a huge effect on the result. If we do it in a positive way, one that resonates with our listener and touches their heart, then the magnification and celebration have an even greater effect.

However, if we do it in a way that turns them off, if we come across as a fanatic or even manic in our behaviour, then the negative effect is that much greater, too.

Now, when I go back and re-read this extract from the Writings, it makes so much more sense. Call attention to the Name of God, no matter where it is found. Continually remind people of these virtues in the world. Celebrate when you hear people praising God, for it is reminding people of the true spirit that animates the world around us. But also be careful. Remember not to overstep the bounds of moderation, in case you accidentally turn people off. Use wisdom, and ensure that your actions are helping reshape people's concept of these ideas to something more positive than we usually see. We are so used to encountering fanaticism when people speak of religion that at its very mention, people tend to turn away. We can help change that, and thus help make the world new.