The Spiritual Power of Witnessing a Total Solar Eclipse and Visiting the Site of a Great National Tragedy on the Same Day
After experiencing the celestial magic of the April 8 eclipse, I visited the site of the JFK assassination, which moved me just as deeply
When I started contemplating which city to visit to witness the April 8 total solar eclipse, I quickly settled on Dallas, Texas. For one thing, it seemed the most likely of the big cities lying within the proverbial “Path of Totality” to experience clear skies on that day. And I knew it would provide me an opportunity to finally visit the site of a historical event that has long transfixed me: Dealey Plaza, where President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on Nov. 22, 1963.
The experience of both events last Monday was indeed transfixing in ways that are difficult — maybe impossible — to put to words. They also made me reflect on the random acts of nature that so often shape events in our world, and our understanding of them.
On the surface, the eclipse and JFK assassination would seem to share very little in common, but it immediately struck me on Monday that they shared one very important element — the whims of nature. Weather both made possible how we experienced the emotional splendor of an incredible act of nature — the eclipse — and an evil act of man that changed our world 60 years before.
Despite the historical record indicating that Texas would be the most likely place in the U.S. to experience clear skies on April 8, the forecasts leading up to the big day indicated the opposite. Cloudy skies and a chance for thunderstorms left me on edge as I checked the Dallas forecast obsessively in the days leading up to my journey there. It seemed quite possible that Mother Nature might rain on this celestial parade of wonder.
Drawing on my Catholic upbringing, I even took to researching the patron saint of bad weather (there’s a saint for everything in Catholicism) and offered up a torrent of prayers to Saint Medard (a sixth century French bishop whom I had never heard of a couple weeks ago) to clear the skies at the appropriate time, asking others (whether Catholic, Protestant, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, agnostic, atheist or none or all of the above) to do the same, in an act of spiritual power in numbers.
And sure enough, Saint Medard came through. When I awoke Monday morning, the skies were indeed overcast, as the forecasts predicted, but as the clock ticked closer to the time when the moon would begin its slow march across the sun, the clouds steadily began to clear and waft away, and more and more blue emerged. By the time my wife, daughter and I arrived at the park abutting the Carrollton Public Library outside Dallas where hundreds had gathered for the big event, the sun was clearly visible, although passing clouds would continue to obscure it for minutes at a time as the eclipse inched toward totality. Nevertheless, with our solar glasses, we were transfixed watching the celestial miracle in action, as the moon steadily covered more and more of the sun, until it became a slight crescent. By the time it finally passed across the final sliver of sun still peaking through, the clouds were long gone, the chirping birds had grown silent, and a spiritual rapture overtook all of us as we screamed and hollered in amazement, savoring every second of the three-plus minutes of near darkness that fell upon us.
What began as an overcast, dreary day gave way to clear skies as the long-awaited total solar eclipse arrived.
I took this photo with a solar filter moments after totality ended and the sun began to re-emerge from behind the moon.
When totality ended and the sun reemerged, we remained on the library grounds for another hour or so, unable to let go of the emotional power of the experience, knowing that if not for the whims of Mother Nature, that experience would have been much different (the skies would still have grown dark, but we would have been unable to savor the mesmerizing waltz of sun and moon). And if this miracle of astronomy had come on April 9 or 10 instead of April 8? Clouds and rain dominated the skies over Dallas on Tuesday and Wednesday, with torrential downpours on Wednesday leading to flash flood warnings.
The darkness that fell over the public library in Carrollton, Texas, during totality.
Then it was off to Dealey Plaza, to the old Texas School Book Depository building, the grassy knoll, the triple freeway underpass and the Xs carved into Elm Street where the bullets rang out that changed America forever. And it immediately dawned on me the role that the fickle nature of weather had played then as well.
From watching countless documentaries of the JFK assassination over the years, I recalled that the weather in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963 was as unsettled as it was on April 8, 2024. On both days, bad weather threatened to steal the show before the clouds parted, with results that could not have been more different. When JFK and Jackie arrived in Dallas that fateful morning, the weather was damp and drizzly, and rain meant that the top of the limousine that would carry the couple through Dealey Plaza would need to be closed. And a closed limousine would mean no perch from the sixth floor of the book depository (or grassy knoll?) to take aim at the president.
The Texas School Book Depository Building, as seen April 8, 2024, from which the fatal shots were fired that killed President John F. Kennedy.
But then, as was the case last Monday, the skies cleared at just the right (or in that case, wrong) time, and the limousine top was lowered for the motorcade ride through the plaza. While the parting clouds at 1:40 p.m. last Monday made possible the emotional ecstasy at the moment of totality, the parting clouds at 12:30 p.m. on Nov. 22, 1963, made possible the emotional shock and horror of a slain president.
What message is there to take away from these two acts of nature? When I think of the celestial phenomenon I witnessed last Monday, I am struck by the knowledge that this is a phenomenon that dates back to the beginning of time itself, witnessed by humans who lived not just centuries, but millennia, ago, who likely shared many of the same emotions I did on Monday. And long after I am gone from this Earth, new generations of humans will hoot and holler at the moment of totality, or just stare mesmerized, as I did.
When I think of the role that nature played on Nov. 22, 1963, I am reminded of humanity’s complicated role on this planet. The whims of nature provide us humans countless opportunities to make use of it for good or evil, and those whims can also produce great joy in what we can behold in nature, and great suffering in what it can inflict on us — with or without our assistance.
A view of the stretch of Elm Street where JFK was assassinated, as seen hours after the April 8 total solar eclipse. The infamous grassy knoll can be seen in the far right of the photo where the green street sign is located and approaching the freeway underpass.
The X carved in Elm Street marking the spot where the fatal bullet struck Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963.
But, ultimately, we humans, in all our arrogance, do not possess the same power to control nature the way it controls our world and our existence. A human being can take an act of nature — as Lee Harvey Oswald did on Nov. 22, 1963 when a perfectly timed passing storm enabled the lowering of JFK’s limousine top — and use it to inflict evil and change history. But no human can ever use the majesty of a solar eclipse in the same way; there is nothing we can do to stop it from happening or change what it means. In my view, it’s God’s gift, and message, to us, that there are some things more powerful than our own hubris, some things that we will never be allowed to manipulate to our own selfish ends, things that we can only behold in amazement and relish for the depth of emotion they stir in us.
I always appreciate an unexpected connection in two storylines and this one was exceptional. I'm glad St. Medford heard your prayers!