Total solar eclipse: live footage!

Found via Father Z, this is absolutely amazing:  live footage of the total solar eclipse that occurred August 1st, taken in western China.  I’ve never seen a total solar eclipse live before, and it is truly glorious!

I’ve always found eclipses to be a wondrous thing, and a sign of an ingenious and purposeful Creator.  Not only that, but also a Creator who loves to surprise and delight us!  What are the chances that the moon would appear exactly the same size as the sun from Earth?  And that seeing them interact would be such a thrilling and enchanting experience?  Accident?  Coincidence?  Nonsense!

“Living in sin”

I finished watching Brideshead Revisited last night.  Wow.  I don’t think I’ve watched anything so powerful in a long time.

Below is a clip of one of my favorite scenes.  It moved me to tears, partly because I’ve had my own times like this, especially during the first turbulent year of my reversion.  Grief, guilt, and bouts of despair.  Some people in my life couldn’t even begin to understand why I would allow myself to be burdened with such things all because of some stale religion.  And I couldn’t explain it in any way they could understand.  But I knew that in those dark, difficult times, I was being cleansed and healed, deconstructed and reconstructed.  I knew I needed to go through such inner purgatories.  And part of me wanted to… I wanted to be purified, I wanted to be freed, I wanted to be rebuilt, and the old rotten parts of me to be burned up and left in ashes, then replaced.  It was a great act of faith, and the results exceeded all my hopes and expectations.  This scene with Julia reminded me so much of those times… and portrayed the experience so powerfully and well.