A Total Eclipse of the Heart

You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, 

but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.

-Jesus of Nazareth, Mt. 16: 3

Ancient people experienced eclipses of the sun and moon as harbingers of something or other, sometimes good, more often bad omens. Today we have a bunch of people running about, making sure they have their special sunglasses or viewing devices made out of cardboard.  We have warnings about burnt retinas and we have good numbers of people even travelling to the best viewing locations as the moon passes directly between earth and the sun at the proper angle to create a visible eclipse over North America.

There has been much ado about this event, maybe because we just need a distraction from the traumas of the world.  Maybe our reaction to this is a sort of shadow projection of the dread with which ancient peoples responded to an eclipse. This we can understand and explain to our children, it's just the moon, it's just about angles and orbits, it's suitably impressive to draw our attention, and maybe we don't have to think about terrorism, racism, inequality and all of that.  It's much easier for us to explain a celestial anomaly than it is for us to plumb the depths of human sin and the estrangement that exists in the human family.

The ancient people who lived in dread on a day like today, could not help but interpret the eclipse as the sign of God's wrath, after all the sun goes black.  The sun, so vital to everything, is blotted out, if there was ever a sign of an angry god, that had to be it. I'm sitting here typing on my computer with the video feed of the moon moving in front of the sun playing in another window.  Technology has given us the ability to understand such phenomenon, from thunderstorms to solar eclipses on a highly technical level, breeding utter familiarity even with something that only happens once a century.

And yet... we have so little ability to understand the emotional and cultural processes that swirl around us and cause us much more woe than any eclipse. A shadow has been passing over us recently, blocking out the light.  I feel like if we stare too long at it directly our eyes could burn as well. If  you focus so much on the chaos, the anger, the hatred and the division you might just lose the ability to see the good and the kind and the beautiful.  I know I have had a hard time keeping my eyes open for anything but the shadow recently.

So, will this pass as quickly as the moon streaking across the center of this nation, casting it's shadow over crowds gathered with their funny little glasses?  Not likely.  The signs of the times move slower than the signs in the skies.  They are more complicated than orbital physics, and more important for the ongoing health of our shared experiment in democracy. Don't stare too long at the shadow no matter what kind of shades you might have.