Saint Monica's Episcopal Church
Messenger
September 2017
From the Rector’s desk by Rev. Anthony MacWhinnie, II
Father and son set out on a Homeric journey to place themselves directly into the path of totality last Sunday after church. To say we were excited about the eclipse and the trip is to understate the feeling. We were truly giddy! Trey and I traveled to a place in the mountains just outside of Blue Ridge, Georgia. An old friend of mine’s family owns a hundred year old place tucked right into the mountain. Stanley Creek flows by just the other side of their yard. Rainbow, brook, and brown trout are in the deep pool just to the side of the driveway as you descend down from the road located at roof level above to house. Hummingbirds battle for the best positions overlooking the touch-me-not forest betwixt the field and the creek. Their chittering fills our ears the entire day. It is night, though, when we arrive, late. It is chilly, much cooler than back home. When the sun goes down here the temperature drops precipitously. The dew covers all and makes our sandal shorn feet cold. We fight the swarms of gnats, choking on them as we set up our tent cots. Trey calls them “air fish” as they look and seem like some writhing bait ball suspended in the air, inches from our noses, and many times, in them. The barn that is the front cover of the book “Hillbilly Elegy” is just down the road from this place. Cell phones don’t work here. The pump at the house isn’t primed. We’ve gone back in time. And we’ve come together. We’ve come together to see a spectacle, something we won’t get the chance to see again until Trey is in college. The eclipse starts and everything is ideal. The tension is palpable. The first bite of the cookie is gone. Soon, more is gone, a crescent in the sky. Trey says it looks like a yellow moon. A cloud obscures our view for a moment. But then more eclipse watching. And then a few more clouds. I start to worry. What’s going to happen? Should we leave and
try to move to drive to a more cloudless area of the mountains? Or will we just miss it trying to get to that cloudless area? Passing the point of no return, it looks like we will make it. The sun is just a sliver. We decide to stay, together. Two minutes before totality, the darkest cloud of the day obscures our view and stays there until 2 minutes after totality. We missed it. Quietly, we admit our disappointment to each other. Silently, we start the truck and close the gate behind us. Traffic is a nightmare. We pull off and eat at a place in Ellijay. Trey has the best barbecue pork he’s ever had and I break my diet for some chicken and dumplings and a burger with a fried egg on it. Traffic is still horrible, so we break out of it and go to Panorama Apples and for the first time since coming here, the place is deserted. 100,000 people are streaming by outside on the highway, and Trey and I have the place to ourselves. We take our time. Eat samples, and find candy. Even after that, traffic was crazy. I hand Trey the phone and tell him to find us a back way to Highway 27. I trust him and don’t double-check him. He gets us there, like a champ. Because of the traffic I get an extra 2 hours in the truck with my son… Somewhere, in the dark, on the interstate, as Trey naps, I realize that we didn’t really miss anything. We gained. We gained.
Meet us at Beckwith!
Our Staff & Vestry Rev, Anthony MacWhinnie, II, Rector Vestry: Chuck Barnett - Senior Warden Jim Warner- Junior Warden Beth Woods, Susan Early, Ann Philen & John Velaski Twinette McDonald - Music Director Sally Putters - Parish Nurse
Sunday, September 10 Holy Eucharist begins at 11 am