Total Eclipse: The Lantern of the King

Fredricktown, MO, 8 April, 2024, 2:00 pm

It was 9:00 am on April 8 when my wife and I set out from St. Louis for a two-hour drive to see the total eclipse of the sun. The drive took 4-and-a-half hours, and highway gridlock forced us to hastily revise our itinerary. We gave up on Burfordville, opting for an alternate route that brought us to an ideal viewing ground outside of Fredericktown with half an hour to spare.

It takes the better part of an hour from when the moon begins eclipsing the sun before the lack of sunlight becomes noticeable. Even when the sun receded into a crescent through our filtered glasses, we didn’t notice our surroundings getting any darker.

What does it tell us that losing 80% of our sunlight doesn’t seem to make a difference in how well we see? That’s a question worth pondering.

Then comes totality.

In a world filled with bright shiny playthings, a few moments of darkness reminds us that we have to look with more discernment to discover real value, that we have to protect ourselves against temporal distractions, and that we need to constantly remind ourselves to appreciate the real gifts that we so often disregard even when they are right before our eyes.

Enjoy the full article here.