Such a simple thing... The Maker's Mark

Reynolds, my younger brother, is stationed out west at Pecos and sent these shots he just took of the eclipse. He is still jazzed from the experience of seeing and capturing such a rare and inspiring event... I thought it would be a good time to wax eloquently...

Such a simple thing. Yet a colossal alignment. Three independent spheres, in their own orbits through a vast universe, ocassionally line up like billiard balls on a game table. Each vastly different in size, content and temperature, yet all part of some giant organic clock, that we cannot fathom, but some claim is a random mechanism. And two of them line up, then merge, presenting an illusion of a ring of fire... as all three are for an instant perfectly aligned, but only discernable from the middle-sized one, the planet on the end... where beings live and have intelligent life... and love and laughter.... and wonder; Beings who are capable of appreciating the display. And for them, the Creator has shown them His genius. He has shown them His Maker's Mark, that of order out of chaos. The other two mindless orbs, almost opposite in every detail, one gargantuan and deadly hot, in fact a star, and the other quite small, a moon dead and frozen, appear, amazingly, to be almost the same size. Given the variables, calculate the odds of that happening. So very different, yet they each precisely govern great and essential functions on the one that helplessly watches; The day and night, the tides of the seas, the growth of plants, the gestation of mammals, and infinite other subtle impacts... Yet we on the planet rarely think about such things except when they line up, one behind the other, to show the absolute incredible odds, of such things being a total accident. Some look up and see a wonderful, random thing, and shrug it off for something more immediate. Others look up and see the unmistakable handiwork of God. In such a simple thing.