Russell (Rusty) Schweickart was an...
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Russell ("Rusty") Schweickart was an astronaut who flew the lunar module for the Apollo 9 mission. Like many of his fellow astronauts, his life was changed by the experience of looking down at the Earth from outer space. Here's what he said about it:
"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 whole Mediterranean area, and Greece and Rome, and the Sinai and Israel. And you realize that what you're seeing in one glance was the whole history of [humanity] for centuries; the cradle of civilization. You go across the Atlantic Ocean, back across North Africa. You do it again and again. You identify with Houston, and then with Los Angeles, and Phoenix and New Orleans. The next thing you know, you are starting to identify with 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 identity 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. Still, you know there are thousands of people fighting over some imaginary lines down there that you can't even see, and you wish you could say, 'Look at that! Look at that! What's important?' "
What's important? Is it the many duties, the chores and 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," of sensing the Holy Spirit at work in our hearts?
"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 whole Mediterranean area, and Greece and Rome, and the Sinai and Israel. And you realize that what you're seeing in one glance was the whole history of [humanity] for centuries; the cradle of civilization. You go across the Atlantic Ocean, back across North Africa. You do it again and again. You identify with Houston, and then with Los Angeles, and Phoenix and New Orleans. The next thing you know, you are starting to identify with 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 identity 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. Still, you know there are thousands of people fighting over some imaginary lines down there that you can't even see, and you wish you could say, 'Look at that! Look at that! What's important?' "
What's important? Is it the many duties, the chores and 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," of sensing the Holy Spirit at work in our hearts?
