Here’s an inspirational story from the recent week’s sermon clipping floor. Perhaps it will be helpful as we reflect on the big picture in life and in our church.
Russell Schweickart (far right in photo) was an astronaut who flew the lunar module for the Apollo 9 mission which launched March 3, 1969. Like many of his fellow astronauts, Schweickart discovered that his life was changed by the experience of looking down at the Earth from outer space. Here’s what he said about it:[1]
Up there you go around every hour and a half; time after time, after time, and you wake up in the morning over the Mid-East, and over North Africa. You look out of your window as you’re eating breakfast – and there’s the Mediterranean area, and Greece and Rome, and the Sinai and Israel. And you realize that what you are seeing in one glance was the whole history of man for centuries: the cradle of civilization.[2]
You go across the Atlantic Ocean, back across North Africa. You do it again and again. You identify with Houston, and then you identify with Los Angeles, and Phoenix and New Orleans.
And the next thing you know, you are starting to identify North Africa. You look forward to it. You anticipate it. And the whole process of what you identify with begins to shift. When you go around it every hour and a half, you begin to recognize that your identify is with that whole thing. And that makes a very powerful change inside of you . . .
As you look down you can’t imagine how many borders and boundaries you cross – again and again. And you can’t even see them. But you know that in the “wake-up” scene you saw before over the Mid-East, there are thousands of people fighting over some imaginary line that you can’t even see. And you wish you could take each of them hand in hand and say, “Look at that! Look at that! What’s important?”
So, what is truly important? Is it the many tasks, duties, chores, errands and assignments that fill our days with low-level noise?
Or is it those “big-picture” kinds of moments, the rich intervals of stillness and of calm — the times of “being still and knowing that the Lord is God,” sensing the Holy Spirit at work in our hearts? (see Psalm 46:10)
The season of Lent provides many opportunities for us to take the hand of Jesus and experience new heights. We don’t need a Saturn V rocket, as Rusty Schweickart (photo, above right)[3] and his fellow astronauts did, to catapult us up to the proper vantage-point. All we need to do is walk slowly and steadily up the side of the mountain, in the moment, being aware of the presence of God.
As we begin the Lenten season on this Ash Wednesday, may we be ever mindful not to run ahead of God. Just be . . .
[1]A 4th Course of Chicken Soup for the Soul, p.p. 251-252.
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