Like many other millions of people, we stayed up late on Sunday night to watch the “super wolf blood moon” rise into the night sky.
It was gorgeous to behold from our home in Ohio. After a weekend of snow and wind, the night was perfectly crisp and clear and the diminished light of the moon made the stars seem even more brilliant than usual.
Standing in the driveway that took me all-too-long to shovel just that morning, I was reminded of two things. First, there is still startling, unexpected beauty in the world. The eclipse was not terribly different from ones I’ve seen before, but I’m not likely to see one exactly the same as this one. It was a fleeting glimpse of something beautiful we’ll never see again.
Second, the eclipse gave me a good reminder that I don’t really matter. I saw the eclipse come and go, but it would have come and gone whether I’d seen it or not. The celestial bodies that had to alight just so for the eclipse to take place were set in motion eons ago, and they’ll continue to move just as they have eons into the future.
To me, that’s an encouraging thought. It’s good to remember that as screwed up as the world may feel, I’m probably not going to be able to knock the moon off its orbit. No matter how my sinful self might contribute to the world being as it is, God’s near-infinite creation won’t be brought down by anything I do, and he’s already bridged the gap between the world in which I live and Himself.