An Eclipse Encounter

I sat in 33F, a window seat, on my way from Dallas to Pennsylvania for the annual Space for Grace & Spiritual Caregivers Conference hosted by the American Baptist Home Mission Societies. Sitting next to me, in the middle, was a mom who I presume to be South Asian and in her mid-30s. Her young children and husband sat in the row behind us. A Black woman in her mid-20s sat in the aisle seat.

Once we were all situated, I just had to know, so I asked: Did the kids see the eclipse? 

I had scheduled the flight several weeks earlier, and when I received the confirmation email, I noticed something didn’t seem right. I thought to myself, “April 8…April 8…Why does that date sound so familiar?” 

Then it hit me. It was familiar because my hometown of Waco, Texas had been marketing itself for over two years as a prime destination for eclipse viewing, as our part of the state would be right in the path of totality. 

The flight I originally scheduled would be in the air when totality hit, but fortunately, I was able to reschedule for later in the afternoon. 

With all the warnings of apoc-eclipse traffic swirling for weeks, I left early in the morning to avoid missing the event or my flight. I planned to arrive and work from the tailgate of my truck in the remote airport parking lot, then view the eclipse before boarding the plane. 

The drive from Waco to Dallas was as quick and seamless as any I have ever made. I-35 was more speedway and less parking lot than I expected. This gave me time to land at a coffee shop before heading to my pre-paid eclipse viewing area. 

When I arrived at the parking lot, I expected more people to have had my idea, but it was only half full. I arrived a few minutes before the show began. The only other humans nearby were a couple parked on the far end of the lot. I could tell from a distance that they had professional viewing equipment. 

A few years ago, in the West Texas town of Marfa, some friends and I happened upon a younger couple of amateur astronomers with a high-power telescope. We were invited to look into it as it was focused on the rings of Saturn. I gasped in an unguarded moment of awe. 

I thought this experience might be replicated in the airport parking lot, so I slowly moseyed my way over to the couple like Doc Brown approaching Doc Brown in Back to the Future II. 

I started the small talk by saying, “I kind of thought there’d be more people here.” They agreed and told me they try to see the eclipse wherever it appears. They are from Chicago and were in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, for the 2017 totality. 

But they didn’t seem too interested in chit-chat and never took the bait to invite me to look into their equipment, so I returned to the truck to experience the moments in solitude. 

The clouds were rolling in Dallas, so much of the next hour was spent calculating where certain clouds were in the sky, how fast they were moving and whether they would ruin the much-anticipated moment. 

I also, to quote one of my favorite Jason Isbell lyrics, “fought the urge to live inside my telephone” for the next hour. I did pick it up occasionally to share snarky posts about tipping the eclipse and how youth pastors will preach about “gazing into the Son” next week. But for the most part, I lived in the moment, looking up with my special glasses every few moments to track the moon’s progression. 

When it covered about 90% of the sun, I was all in. So were the clouds. 

At 95%, the moon-sun combo was unobstructed, but a cloud was threatening. At 99%, the cloud appeared to ruin the day completely. I was resigned to my fate. 

The cloud seemed too large and moving too slowly to be out of the way before the totality ended. So I took my glasses off and shrugged. 

Now look. I completely understand how problematic it is to attribute fortunate or unfortunate weather circumstances to God. 

One person’s “The tornado turned left just before it hit my house, thank God!” is another person’s “Oh my God, the tornado destroyed my house!” So, I will not attribute what happened next to the Divine. 

Regardless, at 100% coverage, the cloud split in two. 

Trying to put into words the next four minutes feels akin to being asked to be on the team to carry the ark of the covenant on poles after the first guy who did it was struck dead. 

The best I can do is this: In the movie “Contact,” when Jodie Foster fell through the portal of time contraption, the loud, dissonant music that had been in a steady crescendo for a long time stopped, and there was complete silence. After gazing into the universe, trying to make sense of it all, the only words she could get out were, “They should have sent a poet.” 

I’m not a poet. I also am not, by nature, a hand-raiser. But in the moment, it was an involuntary response, just after I gasped. 

The next hour or so is a blur. Things only began to clear up when I was in 33F and just had to know–did the kids see it? I didn’t know these kids, but I hoped desperately they had.

The mom and her kids saw it, but the young lady in the aisle seat did not. She was on another flight when it occurred. The next few minutes consisted of the mom and I stuttering, trying to find the words, with tears slowly welling up in both our eyes. 

Just before take-off, as I was reaching to put my phone in airplane mode, my own mom texted me– “I saw it.” The tears flowed even more. 

In tinkering with the opening words of the Gospel of John, Father Peter Day translated the famous passage, “In the beginning was Encounter. The Encounter was with God and the Encounter was God.” 

And I saw it.