It was dark and I missed my warm bed, but the air dripped with excitement as I loaded my younger kids into the family car for an eclipse adventure. We were practically alone on an open road toward Idaho Falls with the stars shining and the darkness masking the celestial phenomenon we were about to see.
We were in Idaho Falls by 5 a.m. The apoceclipse warnings of no gas and no food and no water kept ringing in my ears, so my first stop was a gas station. With a few hours to spare, and the kids clamoring for pancakes, we drove through the empty McDonald’s drive-thru and went looking for a good spot to park.
I claimed my spot off an exit outside of Idaho Falls. Cars started piling in soon after. Me and 100 of my closest strangers watched as the morning sun inched closer and closer to its meeting with the moon.
On this Monday morning in August strangers became friends in a dirt field on the outskirts of Idaho Falls as we waited for the moon to cover the sun and somehow change our lives forever. We weren’t Republicans and Democrats, black and white, rich and poor. We were humans, witnessing together an experience we understood to be far bigger than anything we had ever experienced.
The light dimmed and the air grew cold, and 11:32 a.m. came with a collective cheer of joy and laughter and amazement. The moon blotted out the sun’s dusky light as if someone had flipped a light switch, and in a moment the air was chilled and a hush settled over the landscape. A tangible wonderment filled us as we crooked our necks to witness the ball of fire in the night sky. Red light permeated the horizon at every turn – a 360 degree view of sunset. Stars shined and crickets chirped, and then a minute later it was gone.
To look up in the sky and see a dark orb surrounded with crystals of light gave perspective to me and the strangers in that magical Idaho field. Together, we witnessed a rare wonder hard to describe with earthly words.
The uniqueness of this unity lies in the fact that something good brought us together. More often it is tragedy that causes us to remember our common humanity. Like the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Or Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005. Or like the white supremacist rally in opposition to removal of a Confederate-era statue in Charlottesville, Virginia, little more than a week ago.
Charlottesville was devastating. The idea that there are people ready and willing to march in the name of white supremacy and the Ku Klux Klan is sickening. It’s easy to convince ourselves that we have overcome racism, but it is very much alive, and it is institutional.
To fight the racism that bared its ugly head in Charlottesville we must name it when we see it. Racism exists in our criminal justice system, where black people and Hispanic people are overrepresented in prisons across America. Racism exists in a church whose members bear the burden of a priesthood ban that discriminated until 1978. Racism exists in the line at Costco when an ignorant customer refuses to answer a black clerk’s questions or even acknowledge his existence.
What can we do to stop it? How can we cultivate the unified feeling the eclipse experience brought out of us? We can attend counter-protests whenever or wherever white supremacists are, until they are too afraid to show their faces anymore. We can demand that a church does more than just post an essay that distances itself from old and incorrect doctrine, but actually apologizes for its treatment of black people and asks their forgiveness. We can tell the Costco manager exactly why the black clerk refuses to help the racist customer, and demand the clerk be supported in his stand.
Fields of strangers marveled together at a celestial miracle that darkened the sun on Monday morning. The air chilled and the light lapsed and the wedding ring in the sky shined equally for everyone in its zone.
As the saying goes, we are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience. May we look for more ways to bring the spiritual to our lives, especially when we confront racism, without waiting for the next solar eclipse.
Michelle Quist Mumford is an editorial writer for the Salt Lake Tribune, and hopes she doesn't have to drive through the night again anytime soon. She is getting too old for such shenanigans.