Human Wonder at the Transcendent: Reflections on the 2024 Total Eclipse

On August 21, 2017 I watched a partial eclipse from a bench in the middle of Oklahoma Baptist University’s campus. About 85% of the sun was covered by the moon for a few minutes. There were hundreds of students and faculty standing or sitting around the grounds staring (with eye protection) up at the sky. The spectacle was eerie and impressive.

Yesterday, April 8, 2024, I drove about an hour south into Ohio to witness three and a half minutes of total eclipse. Even though it took significantly longer to get home, the trip was well worth it. The actual event was spectacular. “Awe inspiring” is how one of my teenagers described it. But there was also something more.

Much has been made, of course, about the crazies predicting that this eclipse had some tie to the the apocalypse and end time events. There is a cultural incentive in trying to make religious people look like idiots. Unfortunately, there are enough religious people who are foolish enough to long for the attention or to make fanciful predictions to solidify the stereotype. Most people, however, whatever their religious background experienced a sense of wonder at the beauty of the eclipse. That shared wonder is worth exploring.

Wonder at the Transcendent

My family watched the eclipse at a tiny park in the middle of Ohio. After hours of research, my wife chose that particular park because it was small, off the beaten path, had few streetlights nearby, and was a swamp preserve that had an open space. Sometimes the internet is an amazing thing, since the main purpose for this park was to provide about twenty parking spots at the head of a greenway trail that had been converted from an old railroad. It had a public restroom, which was a big bonus.

About 45 people gathered in that tiny park. Many of us were from Michigan, including the guy with the “313” t-shirt where the “1” was symbolized by a fist with a single digit raised in salute. One man set up a telescope and a camera. He was a retired mechanical engineer who had traveled to see totality in 2017 and was looking forward to this spectacular solar event. We were a motley crew. Obviously, it wasn’t a random selection—everyone there had traveled to see the event—but it was certainly not a homogenous group.

Image courtesy NASA. From the 2017 total eclipse.

Despite the evident variegation between the backgrounds and personalities of the group, the response to the eclipse was fairly consistent. During the slow buildup to totality for a little over an hour there was quiet conversation, phone usage or book reading, and periodic observation of the progress of the moon. Radios were turned down to hear the changes in the bird songs. Conversations continued, but were muted and intermittent.

In the minutes before totality everyone was quiet. It was a strange feeling with dusk settling in so early in the afternoon. But then, when the “diamond ring” appeared and totality set in, there were applause and expressions of wonder. For a little over three minutes, there was only one thing on everyone’s mind. People were off their phones and focused. For a few minutes you could hear oohs and ahhs all around. There was a shared sense of wonder at the transcendent.

Common Human Experience

The eclipse of 2024 was not an eschatological sign pointing to the end of the world. It was, however, a teleological sign pointing to the nature of the creator. That God created a world of such regularity that we could know down to the second when totality would happen in the little park at the end of a country road is amazing.

The eclipse also revealed a deep sense of longing for the transcendent. The world is wondrous. Creation is dazzling. Rare moments like a total eclipse remind us just how small we are and how amazing the world is. Such events draw from within the human heart a response that is best explained by our longing for something beyond this world.

There is no question that what we witnessed was, at the most basic level, simply a large rock in space (the moon) getting between a larger rock (the earth) and a star (the sun). There is a natural explanation for everything. But if all we experienced was explicable by the cause and effect of matter, gravity, and natural laws, then why were we all amazed?

This transient event was a reminder that there is order in the universe. There is design. Care was taken by a mind to create something that is wonder-full. And, if we’re willing to take a little of our time, we’re likely to get a glimpse of the transcendent even in this world of banal imminence. These moments are gifts from God to draw us out of the ordinary into a sense of awe at his nature. That is something no human mind can deny.