Minister’s Column
When I was a boy, my father took me with him on a journey to Winnipeg, Manitoba to see a total eclipse of the sun. I remember flying with him from Massachusetts to Minnesota; I remember driving north into Canada with my step-sister and step-mother who joined us; I remember the sheets of sun-proof film we looked through and the frozen lake where we viewed it.
This year the eclipse came to my father, so he didn’t have to travel anywhere: the path of totality passed through the part of Ohio where he lives. And although some other members of my family went to Ohio to see it, I decided to stay home in Michigan. So I got the free glasses from the library and decided to be content with whatever I could see from my own home—a partial eclipse.
The day could not have been more perfect, with warm April temperatures and a clear sky. By the time I went outside for my first look at the sun, it was already partially obscured. I spent the next two hours outside working in the garden and checking the sun every 10 minutes.
I was amazed by the fact that even a small crescent of the sun gives so much light. The quality of the sunshine during the peak of the eclipse at my house was similar to the quality of light when a cloud obscures the sun – but there were no clouds in the sky.
This makes me think of our power as humans, and I am reminded of the words of Marianne Williamson, showing that even a part of our power is powerful:
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness
That most frightens us.
My other reflection from the partial solar eclipse was the connection and separation between the sky and the earth. I was going back and forth between gazing at the sun high in the sky – and being on my hands and knees in the garden, the first weeding and cleaning of garden beds this spring. My conclusion is that I must be both: I must be grounded in my connection to the earth, doing just what I can in this moment and not getting beyond my own abilities. Simultaneously, I must be connected with the heavens: with the celestial dance of the planets which I can barely grasp, the alignment of sun, earth and moon in the vastness of space; the glimpse of distances far beyond me and the suggestion of realities beyond me: life and death, the passage of time; the infinite stars.
As I sit in a coffee shop writing this column the day after the eclipse, cars are hurrying by on the road. The eclipse is over and no one today is stopping to put on special glasses and look up at the sun. Nor are those cars stopping to be present to the soil beneath our feet and our connection to Mother Earth. The lesson from the eclipse is to be grounded and to be connected to the heavens. May I remember that lesson with its humility and its grandeur.
PRAYER:
May the experience of the solar eclipse bring together humanity for a moment.
May we pause to reflect on what is important to us.
May we remember that we are connected to one another, and to the sun and stars.
May sunshine bless us. May we embrace each day as a gift.
Rev. Andrew Frantz
April 9, 2024