In Iowa: Americans united to watch the solar eclipse, seeking light amid darkness

When something like Charlottesville happens, when neo-Nazis and KKK members are marching in the streets, chanting and waving torches - even hardware store tiki torches - it's hard to know what to think.

It's hard to fathom what this event itself says about us, about our country, about who we are. It's hard to fathom such hatred, such animus to fellow humans, such easy ability to reduce fellow Americans to epithets and slurs.

Perhaps it shouldn't be so hard to fathom; the veins of this hatred that are baked into our national story. I know it is only hard for me to fathom because of my insulation from that hatred, wrapped as I am in my white skin and middle class Midwestern upbringing. Racial hatred has never been directed at me, at least not in this country.

I have made it a goal to broaden my experience of America, to listen and try to understand, to read books and attend lectures and dive into podcasts and essays.

My understanding is curtailed by my life experiences, but my ability to learn and practice empathy is only curtailed when I give in to my desire to curl up with another piece of sheet cake, Tina Fey-style.

Hopefully, with learning and empathy comes action. I saw another side of America the week after the Charlottesville chaos, when thousands of people poured onto the University of Virginia campus for a candlelight vigil. The soft glow of their candles outshone the torchbearers of a few nights before, and they drowned out the chants seemingly still echoing in that space by singing together.

The people in that crowd didn't present easy answers for dismantling the systems of prejudice and racism inherent in our country. The work of confronting those systems is slow and laborious and will continue for a long time to come, one toppled statue and protest at a time.

But watching video of that crowd raising its candles and singing 'Amazing Grace,” an anthem written when a former slave trader turned away from his past sins, I felt hope that there are more people willing to do that work than there are white supremacists and their ilk.

I thought of that crowd in Charlottesville as I watched the eclipse Monday. Or rather as I tried to watch the eclipse; it was too cloudy for much solar clarity. Nevertheless, a group of co-workers and I climbed to the public library roof, where a crowd gathered.

Together on that roof, we knew the chance of seeing anything noteworthy through the dim clouds was remote, but we still were inspired to look. There was something compelling about being in that space, surrounded by our neighbors, all hoping for a collective glance into the cosmos, with the knowledge that across the country millions of our fellow Americans were doing the same thing.

For a moment, we were all united.

Then, of course, the moon's shadow passed and we walked back to our offices, where we were confronted with photos of President Donald Trump staring directly into the sun on camera as an aide shouted in dismay, the warnings of scientists trumpeted across the media near and far reduced to fake news. On cue, Twitter's snark machine roared back into life, and Americans were back to politics as usual.

But maybe we can remember staring upward in collective awe together the next time we're convinced we could never bridge the gaps between us. Each of us is so tiny next to the infinite space revealed when the sun disappears. We need each other to light candles in the dark.

l Comments: (319) 398-8434; alison.gowans@thegazette.com