Weekly e-News August 25, 2017
Hey, everyone!
Well…
It’s over.
We made it thru Eclips-o-mania.
After all the talk, the traffic to get there, the tears (“Seriously!? Tears!?” Yes, some had tears!) and the traffic getting home, you probably thought the eclipse was…
(Check one.)
- __Amazingly and unbelievably awesome!
- __A once-in-a-lifetime experience (which is true f’r us elderly Vols! Next one close to Tennessee is May 11, 2078! In North Carolina!)
- __Very, very cool!!!
- __Very cool!
- __Cool.
- __Maybe a little less than I expected…
- __A dud
So, maybe it was a teenie-weenie bit less amazing than I thought it’d be. But I believe we were not as much in the path of totality as I thought we were going to be. We were in the path of semi-totality. Or the path of partiality. I just thought it’d be totally dark and you’d be able to see all the stars…
One person said on the radio that “this may be the greatest day of my life!” Well, shoot! I’ve had four days better than Monday just this week! I kinda thought it was a dud, honestly!
Until I thought about what I was looking at…
Then I realized I was looking at the pure love of God!!
I remember reading in this book that explained how geophysics and astronomic science show how our life on earth is possible only because the sun, moon, and stars above are perfectly, amazingly, and almost miraculously situated and orchestrated in size, placement and qualities…just for us! Life like this one we live is virtually impossible anywhere else in the universe that we know of!
Scientists always thought that our sun was just an ordinary plain, ol’ star, no better than the kabillions of other stars out there…
But they don’t say that anymore!
Turns out our sun is among the top 10% of the biggest stars in the Milky Way! (Kinda makes you proud!)
In fact its the perfect size for human life! Any bigger and the Earth be unable to spin each day ‘cause the gravity of the sun would “lock us in” and one side would face it the whole time and burn up (the “sunny-side up”) and one would face away and freeze.
And our orbit around the sun is a perfect circle (almost), which is extremely rare among planets! And life would be impossible if it weren’t! If it was an oval, we’d freeze on both the ends of the egg!
Did you know the gravity of Jupiter protects us from comets smashing into our beloved planet and wiping us out?! They slam into it instead and hey! who cares? Ain’t nobody home there!
And we are the exact, perfect distance from the sun! Turns out 93 million miles, give or take a few, is perfect! Change it 5% either way, we’d all be dead! Froze or burnt. Dead either way!
So, the earth and sun are perfect for each other! There’s not a pair out there like the two of us!
And how ‘bout the moon!? Wow!
It’s gravity pulling on us, keeps us at a perfect 23.5 degree tilt ( which is exactly what we need for our mild seasons) and our tilt is the engine of the cloud circulation and the hydrologic cycle! Without the moon we’d tilt wildly and erratically between zero and 85 degrees! (I feel sick of my stomach thinking about it!) And the gravity of the moon runs our tidal system which recycles minerals all thru the earth and perpetuates the ocean circulation system which regulates heat distribution over the planet! Also the moon’s gravity slows the earth from spinning too fast! Without the moon, there would be hurricane winds covering the earth 24/7!
Btw, our earth is just the perfect size! If it was just a little littler, it wouldn’t have enough gravity to keep our atmosphere all snug up to us! if it was bigger, the gravity would be so much, it’d flatten all mountains (which would fill the oceans!) and the smooth earth, rather than the bumpy one we have, would be covered with water at about a mile and a half deep! (How long can you tread water?)
And here’s something amazing! Even tho’ there are nine planets and sixty-three moons in our solar system, the only place total eclipses happen (where a moon perfectly passes between the planet and the sun) is…guess where?
Good ol’ Earth!!!
It’s almost like the earth was placed here uniquely in the universe in the perfect conditions…with the perfect sun and the perfect moon… just for us! So we could live and love and be loved by God!
In fact, it was!
So, on Monday, for just a minute, we could look with our bare eyes, at the sun…
and our moon in front of it…
and behind it, the love of God!
Wow! That eclipse really was…
- __Amazingly and unbelievably awesome!!