I experienced the April 8, 2024, eclipse in totality. That thing was stunning!
Immanuel sent me into this experience via our conference pastors retreat held at Shannondale. The solar eclipse was our focus of spiritual connection each morning and evening.Â
Shannondale Community Center, Shannon County, Missouri, where our eclipse retreat was held.
We began by remembering the practices of indigenous people and their ancient wisdom of calculating and predicting eclipses, as well as the spiritual observances they held. It was important not to look at the lunar event and they honored the silence of nature during an eclipse as holy. Some tribes would pray, chant, and yell for the sun to be reborn, ushering in a renewal of creation.Â
In Christianity, our scriptures describe eclipses as a culmination of warning that terrible things were coming. Bible passages paint visions of the sun and moon darkening, or the moon turns to blood. [Joel 2:10, 31; Mark 13:24; Acts 2:20, to name a few.] Eclipses were events prompting people to prayer and repentance.
In a spiritual reflection on eclipses, some in our group of pastors had experienced an eclipse. I had seen two eclipses: a total eclipse in Fredericktown, Missouri, in August 2017 and a partial annular eclipse in Kansas City, Missouri, in May 1994. Both were amazing experiences. This would be my third.Â
My expectations for this eclipse would again be an immersion of profound wonder at God’s universe and the amazement of humanity donned with eclipse glasses, tracking the sun with our faces toward the sky. I would not disappointed.
Eclipse glasses protecting my retinas from damage while viewing the eclipse. :)
As the eclipse began, the blackened moon ever-so-slowly covered our blazing star. When the black lunar disc perfectly covered our brightest star, a faint glow illuminated its crisp circumference. I could safely slip off my protective glasses for a few minutes. I sensed wonder and openness to the strangeness all around me.
With my bare eyes, I looked at the eclipse. A few micro bright-red dots peeked along the right and bottom edges in the glow. I had not noticed that before. The darkened, night-time sky revealed a twinkling Venus.
The temperature dropped sharply. I pulled on my jacket and scanned the horizon, turning around in a complete circle. The distant sunlight glowed like faint twilight in 360 degrees. A holy hush fell on all creation.Â
There was no sense of dred or fear. Just peacefulness. Stillness. Wonder.
My God is Lord.
I fumbled around and took a brief video of the eclipse’s totality. My cellphone lens does not convey the awe and wonder very well. Maybe you just had to be there.Â
I took a picture during the eclipse's totality with my cellphone. It was not the greatest picture. The eclipse is high in the sky. Venus is the small dot to the lower right of the eclipse.
When the eclipse's totality slipped away, a tiny beam of sunlight burst through our darkness and onto our faces with eclipse glasses in place. Our brief night returned to day.
That evening around the campfire, we reflected spiritually on our eclipse experiences. One saw the darkness as shade, quiet, and renewal from the harmful sunrays. For another, the splendor of the eclipse was overwhelming with a prayerful whisper of, “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, God." One more noticed the low-glowing 360-degree horizon and shining planets and became aware that nothing could stop the light, not even the darkness. Then another named off the out-of-state license plates and the wonder of humanity's unity to gather.
These ponderings and more filled our hearts.
The campfire glowing as we reflected on the eclipse.
I shared my awe at the swell of human pilgrimage to a predicted lunar path of eclipse. We trusted the calculations of scientists for their predictions for best experiences. We gathered where they said would be the best spots for viewing, expecting awesomeness to meet us there. We followed their maps and huddled into the path of totality.
We came to see the eclipse, and we did it, but we left changed and bonded by our experiences. Â
Our pilgrimage to experience an eclipse reminded me that pilgrimages are on the rise around the world. Folks are taking pilgrimages for all kinds of reasons, some religious, some just wanting to walk in the footsteps of history. Every pilgrim begins their journey expecting to see something amazing and memory making. More than half would say that, in the end, they had unexpected spiritual experiences. The change is more than physical from the long journey.
They did more than see something. They had an experience.
I think pilgrimages hold clues for the future trajectory of religion and church. We desire to do more than see; we crave an experience of the profound wonder of God with all of our senses.
Like an eclipse in its totality.
Sources:
コメント