What a day across the '[belt] of totality' straddling the U S of A at this incredible time in American history, and what a welcome relief/distraction for one and all in that much-afflicted land from the ongoing, never-ending, incessant 'march' ever backward(s) and downward(s) of the Trump Road Show excuse for the American presidency...if only for the briefest moment in time, admittedly.
A welcome and eagerly-grasped moment in which around 11 million Americans - plus vast numbers of temporary visitors - living along the thin geographical 'belt' criss-crossing the United States through 14 - over a quarter - of its 50 states, from the beloved Oregon (my favourite state while sojourning in the U S from later 1992 through mid-1995) over to South Carolina, I *believe.
This is simply to note this interesting event, and to point out my 'recollection' that the last time such an eclipse criss-crossed the U S of A - or perhaps a little prior, to be precise - forty years ago, i.e. 1979 evidently, a certain individual claiming extremely special, even unique spiritual(heavenly)-(earthly)temporal authority was coming upon the scene and within a short time had 'amassed' significant worldly and religious status and influence. To whom do I allude? None other than Pope John Paul the Second, who I mention in this context for one essential but exceedingly important, even mouth-dropping, reason: he was cited, specified, identified around 1,000 years prior - in a mysterious medieval prophecy which has been treasured within the Vatican Library for almost as long - as one whose actual eventual tenure/'reign', a remarkable 25 years all up, was denoted by said 'prophet', an Archbishop Malachy of the then Ireland (comprising both North and South), in these words/terms: as 'the sun's eclipse'/'the sun's labour'. Spooky, eh.
Perhaps all the more interesting and significant in view of his being not only one of the longest-serving pontiffs in world history, but the one who, many would and could well argue, effectively 'healed the deadly wound' of Revelation 13, after which the entire 'world [would] wonder after the [religio-political power specified]'; and did he achieve that - in literal spades. And though the relatively problematic, crisis-ridden and unpopular pontificate of his immediate successor, Pope Benedict the 16th, Josef Ratzinger, the one-time Prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, previously known as the Holy Office, and originally much more meaningfully (if eerily) designated the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition, intervened until late 2012, when Benedict took the world by shock and awe and handed in his resignation, the tenure of John Paul's ultimate successor, i.e. Jorge Bergoglio, better known these days as Pope Frances, has well and truly accelerated John Paul the Second's stellar efforts, so much so that to suggest the modern-day papacy is esteemed deeply across the face of the globe is if anything a massive understatement.
Enough for today, my precious shut-eye beckons, but I cannot close without restating the greater context from which biblical setting my blogpost's title is taken. As St Luke, physician to and personal attendant upon the Apostle Paul has written in his Gospel account:
And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; men's hearts failing them for[from] fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the [habitable] earth: for the powers of heaven[the heavens] shall be shaken.
Yes, thinking men and women throughout the world today realize, however imperceptibly and subconsciously, that our world now stands upon the very threshold of great and calamitous events, events long prophesied to immediately precede the great, long-heralded Advent in great power and glory to this earth of the Son of Man, the unique God-Man Jesus Christ Himself, Second Person of the Godhead. And at that time all those 'eagerly looking' to that grand event are indeed advised to 'look up and lift up [their] heads; for [their] redemption draweth nigh'.
And when that 'celebrated' event occurs, the long-heralded 'Parousia' (i.e. Rapture) of 'our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ', Paul advises believers, firstly in then Rome (in his letter to the Romans) that:
We shall not [indeed] all [fall a]sleep, But we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, At the last trump[sic]: For the trumpet shall sound...".
And then in Thessalonika (on today's Grecian Peninsula, i.e. in modern-day Greece), in his letter to the Thessalonians, Paul advises the believers there
'not...to be ignorant...concerning them which are [have fallen] asleep', nor to 'sorrow...even [also] as others which have no[t] hope...'.
And why, prithee, not?
'For...we which are alive and remain [the living and the remaining ones] unto the coming of the Lord shall not [by no means] prevent [go before] them which are asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the [A]rchangel, and with the trump[sic] of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain [the living and the remaining ones] shall be caught up together with them...'
Just what time in history do you reckon that marks us out as being in? Hey, you needn't be a rocket scientist or a neurosurgeon to work that one out...do you? I mean, really...
*But was Bermuda also eventually 'shadowed' by the solar-lunar path? Maybe not an American state as such, let alone even a tributary, except of the United Kingdom...whose population, half that of my own beloved Dunedin, not only hosted the recent America's Cup yacht race, once again 'brought home' by God's Own, i.e. New Zealand, but - at least at one time, if he still resides there - included a fellow named Darren Williams, if I remember rightly, who was one of my room-mates while residing during 1993-1994 at Wildwood Lifestyle Centre and Hospital in Wildwood, Georgia...itself at the actual juncture of both Georgia and Tennessee, very close to the famous Chattanooga whose Lookout Mountain (or perhaps only Hill, reality often being somewhat less glamourous than memory's deceptive halls would sometimes suggest) was itself 'home' to a Confederate cannon, and from whose 'lofty' (by U S standards anyhow) 'peak' one could (apparently) see seven different states all up...assuming those seven to comprise/include: Georgia and Tennessee of course; Alabama, only a little ways distant; but also Mississippi, no doubt; and definitely South Carolina; 'assuming' the other two to probably be North Carolina and Kentucky...but I truly can't recall. (But evidently half the number of states directly criss-crossed by today's lunar-solar eclipse across the United States.)
