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Dear Parish Faithful,
"And God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night." (Gen. 1:16)
“There was no sound. The eyes dried, the arteries drained, the lungs hushed. There was no world.” — Annie Dillard, describing her experience of the 1979 eclipse from a vantage point in central Washington State
"Most of our communal enthusiasms these days are human-made: the Oscars, the Super Bowl, the election, the new Beyoncé album. A total solar eclipse is a product of the natural world. It happens without elaborate stagecraft, without any outlay of capital. For this reason alone, it’s a rare occurrence. And there won’t be another in the United States until 2044." — Melissa Kirsch of the NY Times
The current fascination - if not obsession - with yesterday's total solar eclipse is in itself a very interesting phenomenon. One issue, at least, is the question of motivation: What was behind the movement of an untold number of people all through Mexico and North America who did everything in their power to see as much of the eclipse as possible? Perhaps some of you traveled further north yesterday for that even more "total experience." As to motivation, we have astronomers/scientists, of both the actual and the "backyard" variety, who "live" for such moments. I can only imagine their mounting anticipation in the closing hours of the countdown. And I can only hope that their expectations were met, if not perhaps surpassed. There are countless human beings who are drawn to any and all of the different phenomena in the world of nature, both terrestrial and in the heavens above. Because of how rare it is, a total eclipse is then an event awaited for with great excitement.
Then, there are theistic persons who are awed by God's omnipotent authority over the cosmos; and who desire to always glorify the "the Maker of heaven and earth and of all things both visible and invisible." The eclipse could have accentuated that impulse toward the glorification of God. Or, there are "religious" people who are determined to find a foreboding "sign" in the eclipse, even if it means embracing wild and baseless apocalyptic speculation, usually of the "doomsday" variety, and based on an offensive misappropriation of the Scriptures. And then, there are the countless multitudes drawn to the eclipse out of a curiosity to witness and participate with others in a rare spectacle drawing us closer for a few precious minutes in a communal experience - mingling shoulder-to-shoulder with our political and cultural rivals as we share a rare moment of peaceful co-existence as members of the human race! I was probably somewhere in that particular mix.
I stood outside the house with Presvytera Deborah and with neighbors up and down the block gazing upward with our solar eclipse glasses protecting us from the power of the sun. In fact, and perhaps strangely, I was equally impressed by just how light it still remained even though about 98% of the sun was covered by the moon here in Cincinnati. What a powerful source of light and energy! There is some real logic to the "solar worship" of days gone by. It was the cult of sol invictus that drew the Emperor Constantine toward monotheism and even the Christian revelation in the fourth century. And then it was over and we returned to the house and the mundane events of a typical day. All-in-all, a bit anti-climatic, but then again we did not witness the effect of a total eclipse and the surreal effect of total darkness for a few minutes in the middle of the day. The images that I later saw were quite impressive. Is that what Annie Dillard was describing in the passage above? And perhaps was that your experience?
Doing a bit of follow-up reading on the subject, I came across a few voices that expressed some of the motivation and anticipation to behold the eclipse. In one article, I heard the voice of someone called Ali. She said the following: “I’m not a spiritual person. I don’t usually think about the bigger picture of what we’re swimming in. But I felt that at the eclipse. I had a sense that I’m this one person in this huge thing.” Ali further added: “Sometimes, the things that we’re not in control of are really beautiful. It’s not just bad things.” To use an astronomical term, that just may be appropriate in this context, was Ali and countless "non-spiritual" observers of the total eclipse somehow "orbiting" around the notion of a cosmos of not just intrinsic beauty, but of "something" purposeful, structured and designed? Were they longing for something or "Someone" that they cannot quite find the words for, but Who remains paradoxically present in His perceived absence?
Just what is the "bigger picture?" Or, just what are we "swimming in?" I am hoping that it is not a hauntingly beautiful, but yet empty cosmos utterly devoid of any transcendent presence. Not to crash the party, but without God, I cannot but wonder what anything is really "about," including cosmic phenomena. Random beauty can both attract, but also evoke a certain dread on another, more intuitive level - the level of meaning. I am certainly not denying the meaningfulness of any distinct person's experience of the eclipse regardless of their worldview. And that would include the older man I saw briefly on the television who could not speak because he was weeping so hard when interviewed about what he witnessed. But on a day on which we literally looked up from our earthbound concerns, I think that many of us cannot but turn our minds to the "God question." Is everything around us - on earth below or in the heavens above - God-sourced or self-sourced?
At every Vespers service, when singing or chanting Psalm 104, we glorify our Creator for the magnificence and abundance of His creation: "Thou hast made the moon to mark the seasons, the sun knows its time for setting." (v.19) These two great "lights" are God's handiwork, effortlessly brought into existence by God's uttered Word and perfected by God's Spirit. These two lights were brought to our attention yesterday, and regardless of how momentarily, I do hope that it evoked a sense of awe from our limited vantage point. Or, perhaps we can simply say, together with Mireya Munez of Mexico: “I wanted to thank God because we are alive and He allowed us to see it,” she said. “I hope to be alive to see the next one, too.”
O LORD, how manifold are Thy works! In wisdom has thou made them all. (v. 24)
Fr. Steven
