‘Images of the eclipse show a crisp lunar horizon, because the moon has no atmosphere that would distort light.’

Atmosphere brings distortion but it also brings life. The moon may pose beautifully for photos but you wouldn’t want to live there.

So often the very things that bring potential for distortion or confusion or chaos or loss also carry along the things we value most, even life itself.

Passionate faith may lead to a life of unparralled service or unmitigated violence.

The ocean meeting land offers the pleasure of being carried along in majesty but sometimes being crushed and killed.

Love soars in our hearts and makes us feel invincible but can leave us stripped bare and dangerously vulnerable.

We can live to avoid all these paradoxes and be free of distortion – like a crisp lunar landscape black against a raging sun. Many seek to live this way and risk the greatest distortion of all.

Or we can dare a life of atmosphere and its light distorting quality and find strength and insight from a greater light that gives courage and truth enough to live and love well.

Perhaps when we look at one another and our atmosphere-cloaked world we should set aside sharp dividing lines and take greater pleasure in the wildness of us all.

Image Credit: NASA/SDO – the photo was taken by NASA’S Solar Dynamics Observatory on July 26, 2014.

More details here.

Postscript: I am particularly mindful of many people of all persuasions seeking to draw and redraw crisp, clear lines on our planet in places like Ukraine or Gaza or Syria or Iraq or many troubled places in Africa and perhaps even the oceans around Australia. (And I’m a fool if I don’t think I do it too.) Places where lines have never succeeded but the blurriness of atmosphere has allowed communities to coexist in risky but lovely peace. Set down your lunar linemarkers l pray… and breath.