So, have you ever seen a total eclipse of the sun?  They certainly don’t come around very often so it’s more than likely if you have it’s a distant memory.  But if you’ve been fortunate enough to have ever witnessed one of these you no doubt know that the total eclipse occurs when the disk of the Sun is fully obscured by the Moon.  Having only seen one of these in my lifetime I remember the awesomeness of seeing what seemed literally unfathomable to my finite mind at the time. A time during the middle of the day when there was almost total darkness. Today I’d like for us to talk about something else that doesn’t come around very often.  In fact, from my way of thinking it only comes around once in a lifetime. Something I’m calling “the relational eclipse.” As I even consider this notion it seems no less far-reaching and elusive than that of a total solar eclipse.  In the end, however, I would submit it is one of the keys to the journey of life.  In fact, it is a life-long pursuit. 

So what do I mean by a “relational eclipse?”  As you know, we’ve talked in the past about how much of our life tends to get compartmentalized into disparate and somewhat unrelated parts.  Just keeping up with the activities, much less the relationships contained within each compartment is beyond exhausting most of the time. To mitigate this and to redeem some of life’s energy we’ve considered in past posts the regenerative aspects of living a more intentionally integrated life.  In other words living with an intentional design such that the circles that we do life in (family, work, friends, community endeavors, etc.) begin to become more interrelated as the lines that formerly separated them begin to touch and some measure of crossover integration occurs.  As I’ve thought more about this of late I’ve seen this step as the precursor step that ultimately points us towards our end objective, the “relational eclipse.”  That point that represents the culminating apex of life’s journey when the “compartments” of life obscure and meld into one “circle of life.”  The very point at which, for instance, the relationships that have woven the tapestry of our life come together such that they appear as one.  This is indeed a life-long pursuit and one that we seemingly arrive at only when we reach the ultimate finish line. The really cool reality of such a relational pursuit such as this is, unlike a total solar eclipse, there will be no obscuring of the Son. Truth is the Son might just be the first person you see. Peace.