The day of the total solar eclipse has arrived. Some are calling it “The Great American Eclipse.” People have traveled far distances to be in the “Totality” zone. Little towns like Carbondale, Illinois and Glendo, Wyoming have more visitors than residents today. The special solar viewers needed for looking at the eclipse have been sold out and those who couldn’t get the glasses are preparing their cereal boxes as a substitute for safe viewing. Depending on where you are, the eclipse will be glimpsed for only a minute or two. It won’t happen again until 2024.
The word “eclipse” means “an obscuring of light (from one celestial body by the passage of another between it and the observer) …between it an its source of illumination.” Synonyms for eclipse include such words as “obscuring, blotting out, blocking or covering.” Another kind of eclipse could happen today. Clouds could move in and eclipse the eclipse.
How often have we, both as individuals and as a society, obscured light (like an eclipse or a cloud) by getting between the light and another person or group, blocking them from their destiny, blotting out their dreams, covering them with darkness rather than light? And how often do we wear our “glasses” to avoid looking at what we have done and what we are doing to these persons and groups and to ourselves? It is an almost total eclipse and it might also be called “The Great American Eclipse.”
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