Annie Dillard is a writer who often incorporates religious and spiritual themes in her works. In 1982 she wrote an award winning essay entitled, “Total Eclipse.” The essay describes the time she and her husband travelled to the Yakima valley in the state of Washington to see—you guessed it—the total eclipse of the sun. After an overnight stay in a local hotel, they set out early the next morning, before sunrise, to stake out a hilltop from which to view this rare cosmic event.
They weren’t the only ones. Hundreds, even thousands of people dotted the surrounding hills, bringing their blankets, chairs and binoculars. And most important, they brought their special glasses that enabled them to look directly towards the sun. All of them, young and old, were filled with excitement and anticipation. After a time waiting in darkness, the sun rose as it always does, and immediately began burning away any thin clouds in the sky. For a time, the scene looked its usual beautiful self. The apple orchards in the valley blazed with color. The Yakima river glistened in the sunlight. The air began to warm. All was well with the world.
But then came the change. Dillard describes the bizarre effects of a full eclipse of the sun. She said you couldn’t see the moon doing the eclipsing; rather it looked as though the sky started overtaking the sun. As the sun became more and more eclipsed, through their glasses, it appeared like phases of the moon, a once full sun now becoming completely overshadowed. After a short time, the darkness reappeared. It arrived like a wave, a huge shadow traveling over the landscape at 1800 miles per hour.
But the darkness it created would be different. The wind became still. The birds stopped chirping. Dillard could hear screams from many of the people gathered—she’s not sure; she might have been one of them. And then she looked over to her husband. His face looked silvery gray, a shade of death she had never seen before. In her words…..
The eyes dried, the arteries drained, the lungs hushed. There was no world. We were the world’s dead people rotating and orbiting around and around, embedded in the planet’s crust, while the earth rolled down. Our minds were lightyears distant, forgetful of almost everything. Only an extraordinary act of will could recall to us our former, living selves. We had, it seems, loved the planet and loved our lives, but could no longer remember the way of them. We got the light wrong. In the sky was something that should not be there. In the black sky was a ring of light. It was a thin ring, an old, thin silver wedding band, an old worn ring. It was an old wedding band in the sky, or a morsel of bone. There were stars. It was over.
They weren’t the only ones who thought it was over. They weren’t the only ones who got the light wrong. So had generations of humanity before the coming of Jesus. For them, what lighted the world was the hope of a warrior king, a leader who would propel tiny, back-water Israel into a world power, a nation of wealth and splendor. A chosen nation clearly favored by God. But this version of light was no light at all. In fact, it only served to deepen the darkness in which they lived, and make the faces of those around them appear deathly grey. The true light, the one announced by John the Baptist, the one announced by the prophets before him, the light that penetrated both the heart and the womb of Mary, was the light that was coming into the world. Yes, the true light had been eclipsed by the world of sin and waywardness. But it would not end at that. That’s because according to different plans, cosmic plans—the ones not made by human hands—the true light was coming into the world. This is the same light to which we look in the season of Advent. It’s the light that is measured not just in longer days but in greater union with God, the source of all light, the Light of all lights.
Annie Dillard concludes her experience of eclipse with her words describing the the return of the sun.
When the sun appeared like a blinding bead on the side of ring, the total eclipse was over. The black lens cover that had enveloped the sun was sliding away. At once the yellow light made the sky blue again. The real world began there. Now I can remember. We all hurried away to our cars and never looked back.
