Understanding the eclipse

In just over a week, on Monday, Aug. 21, at 1:20 p.m. CDT, an eclipse will occur in Southeast Missouri. We are directly in the path of this celestial event, which is confined to 14 U.S. states, including the Show-Me State.

The eclipse will cut a diagonal path through America's midsection, and the total darkness should last in our area about a minute and 45 seconds.

Southeast Missouri State University, in a timely move, is canceling all classes between noon and 2 p.m. and that evening is bringing in Michio Kaku, a theoretical physicist, to talk about the eclipse.

I recognize him from a TV commercial for Turbo Tax. Watch it on YouTube sometime. Dr. Kaku is pretty engaging and has a comic's timing.

My understanding is it will be nigh impossible to find a hotel room in Cape or Jackson on the 21st -- as St. Louisans, in particular, come south to bear witness.

What is a total solar eclipse? Simply put, it is when the moon completely blocks out the sun. This rare occurrence is significant enough it should get our heads out of our cellphones, albeit briefly.

My hometown is Pittsburgh, a now-economically diverse Pennsylvania city.

Long known as the Steel City, with a professional football team named after its best-known product, Pittsburgh once looked as if it experienced eclipses every day.

Back in the 1940s, as numerous steel mills shot soot and ash into the air, the sky was frequently black as night at midday.

Those days are long gone, but the region's elderly remember them well.

Since this is a religion column, the expectation of the reader is that I'll connect the eclipse to biblical verses. Indeed, there are nine eclipse references in the Bible, roughly divided between the Old and New Testaments. There is an end-times feel to all of them.

One example, to wit: "But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light" (Mark 13:24).

Every person of faith, each individual believer, will have to decide what to make of this apocalyptic content regarding eclipses.

For myself, I'm persuaded the Gospels show a Jesus of Nazareth who wanted our attention to be earthbound, to the needs of those around us and to the world we inhabit -- and not gazing upward, looking to portents of coming doom.

A cursory read shows the original disciples continually looking up and looking ahead and Jesus forcing their gaze downward to the human suffering and social injustice all around them.

A splendid example of how that dissonance translates to our own time can be found in my own extended family.

A first cousin visiting from Florida stopped in at a St. Louis church I pastored more than two decades ago. She asked me, "When do you hold your prophecy classes?"

"Uh," I replied, "we don't have any of those, but we do have a food pantry."

So make your choice, reader.

Does the eclipse represent a validation of end-times theology, that the world is in its last days? Or is it a rare event to be celebrated and embraced as God shows us once again the majesty of the created universe?

I've made my choice -- but in all things, as a great theologian once put it, it's wise to avoid arrogance about our beliefs and to always await further light.