Psalm 119:17-24 Being Me, For You

The day after the total eclipse in August 2017, everyone was talking about the experience. They talked about the corona, the darkness, the temperature change. But the one thing that surprised nearly everyone the most was the insects.

As darkness fell, the crickets and cicadas and other bugs did what bugs do at dusk: they chirped and squeaked and clicked and sang..

And people did what people do in such a situation.

They tried to make money off it, selling eclipse t-shirts, eclipse party and picnic paraphernalia, eclipse glasses (some of them cheap and dangerous rip-offs).

Others tried to control the eclipse and the way people experienced it. I'm still trying to understand why my local city organizations thought it made sense that everyone would think it necessary to battle traffic in order to congregate at a local park to watch an event that was visible just by looking up from wherever you were.

Other people panicked, just like people panicked millennia ago when an eclipse was an unexpected and unexplained phenomenon. Except 21st century people panicked because they thought the crowd thronging to the area of totality would overwhelm the public infrastructure and cause the collapse of government and civilization as we know it.

As for me, I did the sort of thing that is typical for me. I tried to turn the experience into a reproduction of something I had read, to replicate the experience of someone else.

Years ago I read Annie Dillard's essay, Total Eclipse. Because of that story, I knew I wanted to be somewhere that was wide open, so I could see everything that happened as the moment of totality approached.

The experience failed to be exactly like Dillard's, which should have been no surprise to me.

What I should have done was to be me. To do what I would do in such a situation.

I should have just sat in the front  yard with my wife and watched the eclipse. We live in a neighborhood nestled among a heavily wooded area. I wish now that I had been there to hear our own insects sing, to see if the owl that hangs out somewhere near our house would wake up and join the chorus.

I should have integrated the eclipse experience into the life I live for God every day.

I live in this world for God, not for myself. Not to fit in with the flow of culture, not to pronounce my opinions about the way the world conducts itself, not to try to fit my experience into that of anyone else.

I'm like the crickets, who were created to be crickets. A cricket praises God most when it does what God designed it to do.

Annie Dillard has another essay that says much the same about weasels and eagles.

I think it would be well, and proper, and obedient, and pure, to grasp your one necessity and not let it go, to dangle from it limp wherever it takes you. Then even death, where you're going no matter how you live, cannot you part. Seize it and let it seize you up aloft even, till your eyes burn out and drop; let your musky flesh fall off in shreds, and let your very bones unhinge and scatter, loosened over fields, over fields and woods, lightly, thoughtless, from any height at all, from as high as eagles.

Living Like Weasels, Annie Dillard

Annie Dillard spent her eclipse day doing just that. She experienced the wonders of God's creation with her whole being. And then she did what a writer does.  She wrote about it. It took her nearly two years to get it onto paper and publish those thoughts. That's what writers do.

God created me for a purpose, to grasp my one necessity and not let it go, to dangle from it, limp, wherever it takes me. 

I declare the glory of God; I am his handiwork. Day after day I pour forth words that will either glorify or horrify my God; night after night He gives me opportunities to share with others the knowledge he has given me. 

ג Gimel
 17 Be good to your servant while I live,
that I may obey your word.
18 Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law.
19 I am a stranger on earth;do not hide your commands from me.
20 My soul is consumed with longing
for your laws at all times.
21 You rebuke the arrogant, who are accursed,
those who stray from your commands.
22 Remove from me their scorn and contempt,
for I keep your statutes.
23 Though rulers sit together and slander me,
your servant will meditate on your decrees.
24 Your statutes are my delight;
they are my counselors.

Psalm 119:17-24