1 I lift up my eyes to the hills —
from where will my help come?
2 My help comes from the Lord,
Who made heaven and earth. Psalm 121
Name an event that could cause all peoples to look to the heavens. Of course, that was the solar eclipse!
On April 8, 2024, from Louisiana to New England, all along the path of totality, virtually everyone was looking up, and everyone else in the world was watching them look up on TV while, at the same time, just turning a knowing, yet searching, eye skyward.
While looking up, I opened my cell phone and tuned in to The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square to hear the chorus of George Fredrick Handel’s Messiah proclaim, “The heavens are telling the Glory of God!” No cloud cover was hanging over that profound heaven-speak! It could not be mistaken or dismissed.
My north and south drives up north each remind me of the solar eclipse and Anishinaabe/Ojibwe leader Bugonaygeshig, whose name means “the hole in the day” because he was born on a day of solar eclipse. Signs along Highway 371 at Little Falls and Nisswa mark Hole in the Day Street, Hole in the Day Lake, and Hole in the Day Bay on Gull Lake, as well as the Bugonaygeshig Shoppes of Little Falls.
You might be most familiar with the name from having heard WCCO’s Dave Lee perfectly pronounce Bug-O-Nay-Ge-Shig School in Bena, Minnesota, closed for a cold and/or snow day on the Leech Lake Reservation!
Wrap your mind around the thought that ancient people experienced solar eclipses without the benefit of modern science to predict or explain this phenomenon in the heavens. But just the same as us, they saw wonder and glory in what the whole creation announced and earthly souls could sing. Let “heaven and nature sing” the wonder of it all!
Editor’s note: Eden Prairie Local News (EPLN) contributor Pastor Rod Anderson also serves on the EPLN Board of Directors. He was the senior pastor of St. Andrew Lutheran Church in Eden Prairie.
Interested in contributing a faith-based column to EPLN? Email editor@eplocalnews.org.
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