July 20, 2004

The Moon and the Stars Which You Have Ordained

It was 35 years ago today that the nation saw Walter Cronkite wipe the tears from his eyes and heard Neil Armstrong's voice: "Houston, Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed".

I was only 5 years old. Now that I'm 40, we haven't gotten any farther. In fact, we haven't gotten nearly that far for almost 32 years. Some of my readers question why we should go back. How is it salvific?

I think it is. I think we have a responsibility to go. Do we have a obligation to understand the created universe? How else do we fulfil our dominion mandate? We can exercise stewardship over something we don't understand.

Why do we have an obligation to exercise stewardship over the Moon? Because we have a responsibility to use planet Earth wisely. If we harness the resources of the Moon, which can be done without harming it, we could remove the need for fossil fuels. We could make energy production a non-issue.

That's just one reason. I could name many more.

Is a trip to the Moon salvific on a personal level? It was for Jim Irwin. "The hours I spent on the Moon were the most thrilling of my life. Not because I was there but because I could feel the presence of God." As Apollo 12 astronaut Alan Bean recalls his friends of Apollo 15, "Dave [Scott] and Jim journeyed into space as test pilot astronauts and most of us returned the same way. But Jim changed outwardly." He quoted Irwin as saying, "I returned determined to share with others that profound experience with God on the Moon and lift man to highest flight in life."

Posted by david at July 20, 2004 03:49 AM | TrackBack
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