Unity!

I look up into starry skies often, as well as the stunning, ever-changing moon, but never do I look straight up at the sun. They say it isn’t wise, but I had my trusty eclipse glasses on for protection. Every 2 minutes it seemed, I stretched my neck backwards and looked up at the disappearing sun. What an astounding couple of hours in the sun, slathered with sunscreen, anxious to see such a phenomenal sight.

So this eclipse, long awaited by sky gazers and sort-of sky gazers, has now exploded into our painfully divided world. This eclipse of 2024 held the power to move us, to move thousands of people, and to make gazers of them, because today the people—lots of people throughout the country—gathered in fields and on playgrounds, on mountaintops and plateaus, along the seashore and in boats on rivers and lakes, in ballparks and on football fields, on motor speedways, in parks and parking lots, among Indian mounds, and in back yards and front yards all over the country.

It seems that wherever the people watched, one could hear laughter, and loud talking, and even some appropriate music like ECLIPSE by Pink Floyd. The sounds from all those places offer a brief, magical glimpse of people having fun togeter among friends and strangers, not a cross word between them!

I saw a glimpse of unity. Did you? In this current world we inhabit, we have not seen much unity—not in a very long time. Multiple things crush unity around here where one can regularly hear, “I don’t agree with the policies of your candidate!” “Gaza has had enough help from the U. S.” “So has Ukraine.” “Passing that Bill would create a disaster!” “I disagree with you!” “I don’t like you!”

And so it goes. Everyone can identify instances of disunity that can turn into threats and even violence. 

But not on Eclipse Day! Slathered in sunscreen and with my eclipse glasses close by, I am sitting in the sun, now coming out of its cover in the sky. It’s too monumental to miss and too significant to ignore. It shows us unity in parking lots and fields, all over the place where crowds have gathered to watch and laugh, to ooh and ah, to stand in awe. We also sense a unity that is almost nonexistent in the real world where we live in uneasiness and fear. 

If it’s so easy to find a picture of unity when folks stand in the hot sun looking up into the sky with cardboard glasses, why is it so hard to create unity around something else more significant? World peace maybe.

In the meantime, I continue to ask myself these complicated questions about unity, all the while thinking of the words of the Psalmist from Psalms 133:1 . . .

“Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for kindred to dwell together in unity.”

As I finish these thoughts, the sun is whole again, completely round, and creating enough intense heat that I’m going inside. 

Until next time . . . Look up into the sky and dream of a peace that is so clear that it is beyond our understanding.

May God help us make it so.