Like millions of others, this week I watched a full eclipse of the sun. At mid-day. I’ll admit to feeling anxious this morning. We teased that it seems like such a normal day, maybe the scientists were pulling off a monumental prank and nothing would happen. Then, through the cool glasses I got for free at the bank, I saw the first little chip come off the edge of the sun, and we became serious astronomers. It surprised me that the temperature dropped. Wait – it’s daytime! Other images that stay with me: the profound quiet – until near totality when the crickets began their night song, the bright and sparkly star we spotted overhead, the shadows and odd colored light as the sun was slowly being obscured. Then – oh my gosh, it isn’t really explainable – the moment that we could take off our cool glasses from the bank and stare at the sun – just a black circle with a silver halo of light around it. I wanted to just stare at it, but there was so much else to see… the 360 degree sunset on the horizon, the star overhead. I studied around me and then stared back at the sun, pulling my hoodie up tighter in the cold. I’m an intelligent woman, and I fully understood the phenomenon I was experiencing. I knew in my head that the sun would return. But. There was this tiny part of me that was just a little frightened.
Then, just when the daytime was the blackest, the chilly air and my cold hands teaching me experientially how important the sun’s light is to our little planet… hope dawned. A light – pure and perfect – shot out from behind the blackness, and all at once we were back in the light. Miraculous? Yes, I think so. The Bible tells us that nature itself teaches us about God. Jesus told the Pharisees who demanded he quiet his disciples that “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.” So on Monday, I think it was the sun and the moon crying out showing us the face of God, His power and glory. This lesson is all we need to know. The workings of the universe, created with a delicate and exacting hand, are completely out of our own hands. Many things can obscure the important elements of our lives. As soon as we are out of His light we are cold and in darkness. But without our help or anything we do, hope – in the form of the pure and perfect light of the world – returns our hope and brings us Light. Man, that’s some sermon!
PS. I used one of the pairs of glasses I got at the bank to fashion a lens for my camera. My shots aren’t at all professional, but I think some of them turned out quite well!
Here’s one from the beginning of the eclipse:
And one from after the totality:
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