Total Eclipse of the Heart

The alarm went off at 5 o'clock. It was only 30 minutes earlier than normal, but I hit the snooze button. I shifted under the covers again and waged an internal battle. "Is it worth crawling out of bed to see if I can see the blood moon all the meteorologists were talking about?" I wondered. "You never get good moon photos. Why waste your time? You've been going 90 miles an hour since the weekend, so maybe sleeping for those 30 extra minutes is the right choice."

But ... I did it anyway. I live on the road less traveled. So, I pulled on tennis shoes, but left the house in my PJs, grabbing my camera and my phone and avoiding the snoozing cats as I charged out the back door. I drove down the road a half mile, made a wide circle at the intersection and headed back north so I could open my window and steady the camera on its open ledge.

The moon brightened the western sky and the bugs serenaded me as I tried shot after shot, hitting the delete button after most of them. "Grrrrrrrr," I lamented. "Just what I figured. These are no good at all."

But, then, as  I sat there in the car with a chorus of birds and bugs accompanying the tunes on K-LOVE, I decided it was me who needed an eclipse - an eclipse of the heart. No, my photos weren't like the ones I'd admire later as I scanned Facebook and Googled  "blood moon photos." 

But it didn't matter. The beauty was there, just outside my rolled-down car window, right there for the taking. It didn't matter whether I got the "perfect" shot of the blood moon on October 8, 2014. I was experiencing it in person.

Psalm 19 (NIV)
¹ The heavens declare the glory of God;
    the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
² Day after day they pour forth speech;
    night after night they reveal knowledge.
³ They have no speech, they use no words;
    no sound is heard from them.
⁴ Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,
    their words to the ends of the world.

Yes, the glory of God was spectacularly in view on a county line road in South Central Kansas, if only I wiped the sleep from my eyes and opened my heart.

I sat there for a long time, facing west, as the moon made its transition from blood red back to pale yellow. As I shifted the car into drive to head back home, I caught a glimpse of the eastern sky.

And instead of heading home and making that pot of coffee I so craved, I drove toward my favorite "sunrise" tree, just a little east of our south intersection. It has witnessed many sunrises with me - and many more before I ever arrived on this earth.

Just like the moon had shape-shifted through the eclipse, the eastern sky changed minute by minute, practically breath by breath. I pointed the car's headlights down the road to illuminate it, too.

Psalm 16: 11 
You make known to me the path of life;
    you will fill me with joy in your presence,
    with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

I used the tree's branches as a frame as the sky lightened even more. And I drove another mile and a half to a windmill I often use as a silhouette for sunrises, watching the sky change as I went.

The sky didn't backlight the windmill this time, and the couple of photos I snapped were out of focus. But my disappointment faded when I turned the car around and again saw the moon setting through the span of our neighbor's irrigation system.

By the time I turned back west, the moon was soon to be only a memory, except for the snapshots from a Kansas farm wife's point-and-shoot camera and the images written on my heart.

And I drove back home to a busy day, changed for the better.

Psalm 8 (NIV)

¹ Lord, our Lord,
    how majestic is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory
    in the heavens.
² Through the praise of children and infants
    you have established a stronghold against your enemies,
    to silence the foe and the avenger.
³ When I consider your heavens,
    the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
    which you have set in place,
⁴ what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
    human beings that you care for them?

⁵ You have made them a little lower than the angels
    and crowned them with glory and honor.
⁶ You made them rulers over the works of your hands;
    you put everything under their feet:
⁷ all flocks and herds,
    and the animals of the wild,
⁸ the birds in the sky,
    and the fish in the sea,
    all that swim the paths of the seas.

⁹ Lord, our Lord,
    how majestic is your name in all the earth!

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I'm linked today to Jennifer Dukes Lee's Tell His Story. Click on the link for more stories of faith.