Forty years ago in this season of forty days
Three men took that first trip
to explore the glowing ball in the sky.
Three very different men
with the same doubts, courage, and curiosity.
They achieved their mission,
but came back with a revelation
no one at NASA had predicted.
Not with photos of the moon,
but when
they turned back toward earth,
toward this beautiful blue marble we
call home.
Science and faith collided,
both men and boys in an instant.
Caught up in the magic and beauty of this planet
floating in an
infinite expanse
while knowing the billions of scientific factors
ordering it’s systems
and holding the very breath of their loved ones so far away.
So small in this vast echo of silent
space.
the “overview effect.”
To know
this is the only planet that has drinkable, life
sustaining water
paired with this brilliant painting before them of blue and
turquoise.
To understand
the delicate balance of temperatures, climates
and oxygen levels
paled in comparison to seeing this faint, fragile line
hugging the earth like a thin snow globe glass that could shatter to pieces.
There’s a difference between a mind clouded
with the science
of what makes a lightning storm
and the clarity of a view above the clouds
themselves.
These men came home with a peace dressed in a mystery.
New truths,
new doubts,
bonding like the brothers they had
become.
New answers brought more questions.
They began their descent,
noting the boundaries
that scarred this shared land of ours.
Continents, countries, cities, even families
divided by walls
of brick and opinions.
But whatever language we speak,
whatever landscape we say
good morning to,
whatever views we behold with our eyes
or hold onto in our
minds,
we all look up to share
the same sun, moon, and stars.
We find each other.
We laugh, We
grieve. We strive.
We believe. We doubt.
In the grit and gravel of this day to day world,
We wander
these roads leading somewhere,
how easily we lose site
of the overview effect.
why this planet?
Why this
tiny blue marble in a vast array of planets
and galaxies in the universe?
Perhaps
You are giving us space,
giving us all this room, to doubt.
Calling us to push away for a few
moments
to rediscover what we’re all really chasing.
You.
Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” John 20:27
"It is unexpected, but extraordinarily convincing, that the one absolutely unequivocal statement, in the whole Gospel, of the Divinity of Jesus should come from Doubting Thomas. It is the only place where the word 'God' is used of him without qualification of any kind, and in the most unambiguous form of words. And this must be said, not ecstatically, or with a cry of astonishment, but with flat conviction, as of one acknowledging irrefragable evidence: '2 + 2 = 4', 'That is the sun in the sky,' 'You are my Lord and my God.'" Dorothy Sayers
