More on the Eclipse

A childhood ditty that I recall singing went like this: There’s a log on the bottom of the lake. There’s a frog on the log on the bottom of the lake. There’s a wart on the frog on the log on the bottom of the lake. There’s a hair on the wart on the frog on the log on the bottom of the lake. There’s a flea on the hair on the wart on the frog on the bottom of the lake.

I suppose that it could go on for a while, but you get the gist. After the eclipse I was reflecting on the wonder of what had just happened. The galaxy is moving through space. The sun is orbiting the galaxy as the galaxy moves through space. The earth is orbiting the sun as the sun orbits the galaxy as the galaxy moves through space. The moon is orbiting the earth as the earth is orbiting the sun as the sun is orbiting the galaxy as the galaxy moves through space. Whew.

The universe is expanding. The Milky Way galaxy is moving through the cosmos at about 1,343,000 miles per hour. The sun is moving through the cosmos in an “orbit” of the Milky Way galaxy at the speed of 486,000 miles per hour. That is what I said, 486,000 mph. And the earth is orbiting the sun at a relatively sedate speed of 66,700 mph. Just for fun, add in that the earth is spinning about 1,000 miles per hour at the equator.

And the moon is “trotting” around the earth at 2288 miles per hour, while spinning one time every 27.25 days (But it takes 29.5 between phases because of the extra distance it has to move to “keep up” with the earth as it orbits the sun).* The frog story is pretty simple compared to this, isn’t it?

And we were told that the ancient Babylonians were able to calculate the moon’s orbit and predict eclipses. (I guess they were not just busy building big statues and fiery furnaces for Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.) Leaving out the component of the sun’s motion, this is still a daunting mathematical puzzle. And this little dance around the maypole or sun has been so stable and repetitive that their numbers are accurate today. Some have used their notations and it corresponds with the 2017 eclipse.

We wonder at the dexterity involved in tracking and predicting eclipses and other astral bodies. And some actually believe that all of this interrelated complexity in the universe is a result of some random agglomeration of particles blown out into space at the Big Bang. What you been smoking?

And we are just one minute speck in the entire universe that is likewise intricate and precise. It is not just mind boggling. As an 8 or 10 year old I became aware of infinity. It is an unending number. It just goes on forever. I could not then, nor now, comprehend such a concept. And infinity is required to consider the universe. I’m lost.

But that is not all. The complexity reverses from universe (universes?) down to matter and elements and components of matter and components of components of matter, and log on the bottom of the lake.

Hold on, life goes from gigantic sea creatures of estimated 200 tons to microscopic, single celled organisms. And the complexity of even the single celled organisms is, dare I use it, mind boggling. A single cell is as intricate as the universe.

One of my recent memory verses comes to mind. Jeremiah 9:23, 24
This is what the Lord says: “The wise man must not boast in his wisdom; the strong man must not boast in his strength;  the wealthy man must not boast in his wealth.
24 “But the one who boasts should boast in this, that he understands and knows Me—that I am Yahweh, showing faithful love, justice, and righteousness on the earth, for I delight in these things.” This is the Lord’s declaration.

In all of the creation, this is His driving force: faithful love, justice, and righteousness. He is unfathomable. Yet He chose to supernaturally reveal Himself to us.

“God created the heavens and the earth.”  (Genesis 1:1) And do you know what He wants to be known as? Besides “holy” that is? He wants to be “Father.” Some have suggested that “awesome” should be reserved for describing the Lord. My response is that it is too limiting and insignificant to be used to describe Him. We have to have more words for infinite. In fact, infinity would not begin to describe Him. He made infinity. The number, that is.

I think I will stick with Thomas’ name for Him. “My Lord and my God.” (John 20:28) That is about as much as I can fathom.

Glory. I can’t wait until the next eclipse. “Hey Nebuchadnezzar! When and where did you say the next one is?”

(These numbers are approximate. Different values can be found. It is somewhat reasonable to anticipate this because there is no “traffic cop” out there to measure the speed of things flying around.)