Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes*

by chuckofish

The boy texted me this photo of the Northern Lights taken in his neighborhood the other night. I rushed outside but nothing was visible at my house. Pretty cool, I must say.

You may recall that November 13, 1833 was the “the night the stars fell.” This phenomenal event, one of the greatest meteoric displays on record, was viewed with awe and a degree of superstitious respect across the country. The Missouri Republican reported: “The air was filled with brilliant and innumerable meteors, shooting lawless through the sky, illuminating the earth, ad then passing off to the West.” Many thought the event was the fulfillment of the Scriptures, “when portents shall come of wars and rumors of wars.” Near Independence, Missouri, in Clay County, a refugee Mormon community watched the meteor shower on the banks of the Missouri River after having been driven from their homes by local settlers. Joseph Smith, the leader and founder of Mormonism, afterwards noted in his journal for November 1833 his belief that this event was “a litteral [sic] fulfillment of the word of God” and a harbinger of the imminent second coming of Christ.

A Missouri journalist later recounted the story of how the meteoric shower had restored freedom to a captive black whom a group of farmers had kidnapped. They were awaiting a steamboat to ship the man to a slave trader when the meteor display made the trees and even the river seem to be on fire. The farmers thought that Judgment Day had caught them in the dishonorable act of “running south” a free black man. They let him go. Praise the Lord!