There was a unique stellar phenomena recently that I missed. It was a blood moon of ultimate proportions.
“What’s a blood moon?” You ask.
No, nobody cut the moon to make it bleed. Besides, green cheese doesn’t have any blood in it. Don’t you know anything about real science?
A blood moon occurs when the moon is closer to the earth than normal.
“But, I thought the moon stayed the same distance from the earth. What do you mean it came closer than normal?”
If you keep asking these questions this will be one long post. The moon has what’s called an irregular orbit around the earth. That means it’s at different distances from the earth all the time.
“How do scientists know when it’s going to be close or far?”
If I was a scientist do you think I’d be writing this blog post for fun? All I know is they don’t ask me about such things which is good because I don’t have a clue how they figured this stuff out.
“Back to my first question, what’s a blood moon?”
When the moon is full at a time it comes close to the earth two things happen.
- It looks huge compared to any other time in its orbit. I witnessed one of these many moons ago while traveling back to college from a weekend home. My sister and I had just come around a curve in the road and began to cross Hardy Dam on the Muskegon River. The moon was just over the trees on the other side of the backwaters. It was so big I stopped in the road and we stared at it for about a minute. Fortunately there wasn’t anybody else using the road then or we might have witnessed our own blood being spilled. It was one of those times I wished I had a camera.
- The refraction of the atmosphere gives it a red appearance because of the light spectrum being exposed. How’s that for an non-scientist’s scientific explanation of a technical issue? Seriously, the light being bounced off the moon at that point is so intense it mimics a sunset or sunrise. Red is the only light from a rainbow’s spectrum being filtered at that point so it has the appearance of bleeding red.
“How often does the moon bleed like that?”
Not as often as a blue moon.
“When does the moon look blue?”
Now your questions are coming too fast. The moon never actually looks blue.
“Then why do you call it a blue moon?”
Slow down…slow down, I’ll explain. Give me some time to think of an explanation that makes sense.
I don’t know why a blue moon is called blue because it never actually appears blue. A blue moon happens when two full moons occur during the same calendar month.
“How often does that happen?”
Not very often, hence the expression, “once in a blue moon.” Since the moon has an irregular orbit and months have irregular lengths it’s rare. That means it doesn’t happen very often. Now I’m repeating myself. I hope this makes sense now.
“Umm…go on.”
For some reason beyond my understanding there’s been a series of blood moons fairly close together. This was the forth such phenomena and it was unique for what happened after it cleared the horizon.
“What happened?”
It went dark from an eclipse.
“Do they call it a black moon then?”
Where did you come up with that cockamamy expression? There’s no such thing as a black moon as far as I know. Which isn’t very far.
“Then, what’s an eclipse?”
An eclipse occurs when the orbit of the moon places the earth between it and the sun. The shadow of the earth makes it so you can’t see the moon. It’s actually the fullest a moon ever appears.
“How often does that happen?”
(deep breath…slow exhale) The only thing I know for sure is God has everything under control. He’s orchestrated everything so well scientists figured out when these events will happen several years in advance.
“Then, why don’t scientists believe in God?”
Because they think they’ve got so many things figured out they don’t need God in their lives to tell them how best to live.
Me, I’m not that smart. I know there are too many things out of my control to trust anything I think I might know.
The creator of everything I see has the power to stop the sun and moon in their tracks anytime He pleases. He did it once.
“How do you know that?”
It’s in the Bible. In Joshua 10:13 Joshua told the sun to stand still so Israel could win a battle. God made it stop a full day to insure victory.
“WOW!”
I was hoping that would get your attention. All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen. That ‘s why I believe Jesus is the only way to heaven. Nobody else even comes close to performing the miracles He did.
Wise up and trust Jesus with your eternal destiny before it’s too late. He died for you because He loves you too much to leave you as you are.
He will never leave you. Not even in a blue moon…or any other color moon for that matter.
Keep smiling. Wade
