We gathered and stared at the sky in wonder. Some of us traveled thousands of miles to do so. There were parties thrown, with dancing and music; people crying out in joy and fear, crying out of desperation and confusion. Some did pray, some studied with scientific instruments, and some watched the others who pray and study. We left our fancy houses and high rise apartments and trekked across the map to places like Carbondale, IL, Salem, OR, and Lincoln, NE, all for a better glimpse of the world going dark.
Monday, August 21, 2017, a total eclipse of the sun was visible throughout the United States. Or not visible, however you define it. It’s a nice story and a little break from the chaos of the world at large. For a few moments, people came together for one collective experience; holding hands, fingers tightly interlaced, looking up so as to help connect with the person to their left or right. And whether you were in Oregon or South Carolina, you shared something with someone. Thousands of miles apart yet together in a way no one else will ever know.
I was there, in my own way. I didn’t travel great distances to see it, mind you. From where I sit, I saw something like 90% of the sun go dark, and that’s good enough for a dumb kid from Illinois. I walked onto State Street, not for lunch or to catch a bus, but to see something as natural as rain. A comment or two were shared with whispers reserved for church.
“That’s kinda weird, isn’t it?”
“Neat.”
“Wow, I actually saw an eclipse.”
I glanced past the steel and glass of Chicago’s Trump Tower and gazed upwards. So, too, did others. Everyone looking up like tourists in their own city. The world ceased its non-stop running. For at least a few minutes, gang violence stopped, animals acted out, traffic crawled to a slow, and we actually quit looking down at our phones and instead looked up.
Why do we care about a giant shadow?
Let the eclipse stand as a needed humbling of humanity. For all our technology and progress, when something as ordinary as a moon’s orbit crossing paths with a sun – an event that occurs millions of times per day throughout the universe – we might as well be ancient peoples.
It’s easy to look at them and laugh. They thought the world was ending as the sky went black. “Har, har. Those simple people thought they were gonna die! We’re not dumb Mayans, worshiping the sun and living by a calendar based around eclipses.” We lie that we are better because we can explain with math and charts and graphs exactly what happens, why, and when it will repeat. We think ourselves Hank Morgan in A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court but we’re not. Where they wanted to know, we’re desperate to not. When the moment arrives, we will into existence our ignorance so we can pretend the natural is supernatural.
There’s something soothing about giving in to the unknown. It may only be for a minute or five, but to stand and look and be curious, that’s good for the soul; that spurs imagination, spurns cynicism, and induces awe. When did you last stand in awe? When were you last curious for more than a moment? You have every answer to every question in your pocket but we need more than the practical in life. Love and smiling and laughing and being astonished by nothing but the world itself, that’s special. That’s something Wikipedia can’t explain.
Give in and join hands with everyone today and all those of yesterday. Look at the very same moon blocking out the very same sun in the very same spot at the very same time of day as those simple minded barbarians of the past. Accept that we’re more similar than different and be grateful that you can still be moved by the movements of the heavens.
It isn’t everyday you watch the sun die.
