Most Qualified
Stories
Contents
“Most Qualified” by Frank Ramirez
“Grief is Complicated” by John Sumwalt
Most Qualified
by Frank Ramirez
Philippians 3:4b-14
If anyone has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a prosecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. (vv. 4b-6)
Paul the Apostle lists the credentials that ought to set him apart as one more worthy than others when it comes to his faith, and he does it in part in order to say that none of this matters. Still, you can’t help but think Paul had to be a little bit proud of the fact that when it came to any objective standards, he really stood out!
The same might be said for John Glenn, one of the original Mercury Seven astronauts. These pilots who were lionized as heroes even though, as one of them pointed out to the others after they were introduced to the public with great fanfare, they hadn’t done anything yet.
Over the decades, since nations began sending satellites into earth orbit and landers, orbiters, and probes out into the solar system and beyond, it’s become recognized that the technology needed by space agencies did not just end up in space. The technology needed for the stars changes lives on earth. Advances in medicine, computers, communications, indeed in all branches of technology, have saved lives, improved the quality of the way we live, and transformed the way we interact in our world.
But in 1959, when the astronauts were first introduced, it wasn’t clear any of this was worth doing. However, since the Russians were impressing the rest of the world by putting up the first satellite, sending a rocket to strike the moon, and taking photographs of the far side of the moon, while all the while American rockets had a bad habit of blowing up in public, politicians were running scared and needed for the newly formed NASA to do something impressive. Perhaps, maybe, Americans could put the first human being into space.
Project Mercury, a plan to send a human being into in a small capsule and bring them back to earth, was intended to fulfill that goal, but from the beginning politicians were ready to pull the plug if anything went wrong. Right off the bat the question became – who will ride in that spacecraft? It was theorized that daredevils, deep sea divers, race car drivers, and other risk takers might be brave enough, but President Eisenhower nixed those ideas. Test pilots, and only test pilots would go.
The selection process was difficult, even sadistic, but finally seven astronauts were selected: Alan Shepherd, Gus Grissom, John Glenn, Scott Carpenter, Wally Schirra, Gordon Cooper, and Deke Slayton. In many ways these instant celebrities were seven cookie cutter candidates. They were all white, male, protestant, in their thirties, married with children, and were test pilots. They all became instant celebrities as well as the subjects of intense scrutiny.
But the breathless coverage singled in on one person, who seemed to have more qualifications than anyone else. John Glenn was someone they’d heard of, and unlike the others, he was comfortable talking in public. Glenn was a fighter pilot, a veteran of both World War II and the Korean War. In addition to shooting down several enemy aircraft, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross six times and earned eighteen other medals on top of that. Moreover, he’d been in the public eye when he broke the record for a transcontinental flight. Featured in newspapers and magazines, he was charming when he appeared on the TV show Name That Tune. Many people assumed that John Glenn would make the first flight because of all his qualifications.
Although the seven astronauts worked together as a team in preparation for all the Mercury, the other six were not pleased with the attention Glenn garnered. Moreover, Glenn was a churchgoer, a staunch family man, who was loyal to his wife and family, and many of the others were decidedly not. At one point when the project was in danger of being cancelled, Glenn took the other astronauts to task for straying from the straight and narrow, which they deeply resented. So, when the choice to fly first in the Mercury capsule was placed in the hands of the astronauts themselves, despite Glenn’s obvious qualifications, his colleague’s chose Alan Shepherd first and Gus Grissom second. Glenn was the backup to both those flights and was assigned the third.
Ironically, it turned out to be the best possible thing the other astronauts could have done for him. The Russians put a man in orbit before Shepherd was able to make his simple, suborbital flight. Glenn’s flight was the first attempt to put an American in orbit, and the adulation that came his way was greater than that accorded any of the other astronauts. This most qualified astronaut not only garnered fame for his flight in the Mercury capsule he named Friendship 7, but he also went on to become a US Senator, and later, at the age of 77, went into orbit again on a Space Shuttle flight to test the effects of space on older persons.
(Want to know more? Read John Glenn, A Memoir, by John Glenn with Nick Taylor, Bantam Books, 1999, as well as more recently Beyond: The Astonishing story of the First Human to Leave Our Planet and Journey into Space, by Stephen Walker, Walker, 2021, an account of the first spaceflight that includes a lot of background on the American Space Program.)
* * *
Grief is Complicated
by John Sumwalt
Psalm 126
May those who sow in tears
reap with shouts of joy.
Those who go out weeping,
bearing the seed for sowing,
shall come home with shouts of joy,
carrying their sheaves. (vv. 5-6)
Jo gave me two Louise Penny books for Christmas – murder mysteries, my favorite guilty pleasure. Don’t ask me what that says about my personality or character; I prefer not to know. I read all kinds of those potboilers, good and bad, usually before I go to bed. I find them relaxing. I don’t particularly try to guess whodunit; I just enjoy the ride.
What I like best about mystery novels is that, unlike the mysteries in my own life, everything is neatly resolved in the end. And that along the way I always learn something about myself. The author spins a story that, like Holy Scripture, can be a mirror in which we see ourselves for who and what we are. Sometimes even a bad novel, like a cracked mirror, gives us a new perspective on the cracks in our lives.
Novels – like other forms of art such as a painting, a symphony, an opera, a play, a movie, or a ballet – have transforming power, sometimes inspiring leaps of the imagination that unleash previously unknown talents and dreams. After watching a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Ballet with our 5-year-old grandson, Jo and I smiled as we observed him dancing down the corridor on the way out of the theater, mimicking the movements of the dancers we had just seen on the stage. Who knows what lasting impact that may have on his life?
Louise Penny’s first novel in the Inspector Gamache series, one of my Christmas gifts, has a passage about grief that opened a window into a heartache that I have not known how to express. Clara, an artist who is married to another artist named Peter, is sobbing continually after the murder of her dearest friend, Jane. She lashes out viciously at her husband when he tries to console her, accusing him of not caring about her or their dead friend. Peter resists the urge to hurt her back, instead offering words of reassurance and a challenge.
“’Clara, I love you,’ he says. ‘And I know you. You have to figure out what you believe – what you really, truly believe. All these years you’ve talked about God. You’ve written about your faith … Is God here now Clara? Is he in this room?’
“Peter’s kind voice calmed Clara. She began to listen.
“‘Is he here?’ Peter slowly brought his forefinger to her chest, not quite touching. ‘Is Jane with him?’ Peter pressed on. He knew where he had to go … ‘All those questions you and Jane debated and laughed about and argued over, she has the answer to. She’s met God.’
“Clara’s mouth dropped open and she stared straight ahead. There. There it was. Her mainland. That’s where she could put her grief. Jane was dead. And she was now with God. Peter was right. She either believed in God or she didn’t. Either was okay. But she could no longer believe in God and act otherwise. She did believe in God. And she believed that Jane was with him. And suddenly her pain and grief became human and natural. And survivable. She had a place to put it, a place where Jane was with God.”
Grief is complicated. Losing the loves of our lives is devastating. The finality of death, the longing, the aching in the absence of the loved one, the utter void in which we find ourselves can leave us disoriented, uncertain about beliefs that previously provided grounding. I’m thankful for the Peters in my life who have gently reminded me of who and whose I am.
*****************************************
StoryShare, March 3, 2022 issue.
Copyright 2022 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
“Most Qualified” by Frank Ramirez
“Grief is Complicated” by John Sumwalt
Most Qualified
by Frank Ramirez
Philippians 3:4b-14
If anyone has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a prosecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. (vv. 4b-6)
Paul the Apostle lists the credentials that ought to set him apart as one more worthy than others when it comes to his faith, and he does it in part in order to say that none of this matters. Still, you can’t help but think Paul had to be a little bit proud of the fact that when it came to any objective standards, he really stood out!
The same might be said for John Glenn, one of the original Mercury Seven astronauts. These pilots who were lionized as heroes even though, as one of them pointed out to the others after they were introduced to the public with great fanfare, they hadn’t done anything yet.
Over the decades, since nations began sending satellites into earth orbit and landers, orbiters, and probes out into the solar system and beyond, it’s become recognized that the technology needed by space agencies did not just end up in space. The technology needed for the stars changes lives on earth. Advances in medicine, computers, communications, indeed in all branches of technology, have saved lives, improved the quality of the way we live, and transformed the way we interact in our world.
But in 1959, when the astronauts were first introduced, it wasn’t clear any of this was worth doing. However, since the Russians were impressing the rest of the world by putting up the first satellite, sending a rocket to strike the moon, and taking photographs of the far side of the moon, while all the while American rockets had a bad habit of blowing up in public, politicians were running scared and needed for the newly formed NASA to do something impressive. Perhaps, maybe, Americans could put the first human being into space.
Project Mercury, a plan to send a human being into in a small capsule and bring them back to earth, was intended to fulfill that goal, but from the beginning politicians were ready to pull the plug if anything went wrong. Right off the bat the question became – who will ride in that spacecraft? It was theorized that daredevils, deep sea divers, race car drivers, and other risk takers might be brave enough, but President Eisenhower nixed those ideas. Test pilots, and only test pilots would go.
The selection process was difficult, even sadistic, but finally seven astronauts were selected: Alan Shepherd, Gus Grissom, John Glenn, Scott Carpenter, Wally Schirra, Gordon Cooper, and Deke Slayton. In many ways these instant celebrities were seven cookie cutter candidates. They were all white, male, protestant, in their thirties, married with children, and were test pilots. They all became instant celebrities as well as the subjects of intense scrutiny.
But the breathless coverage singled in on one person, who seemed to have more qualifications than anyone else. John Glenn was someone they’d heard of, and unlike the others, he was comfortable talking in public. Glenn was a fighter pilot, a veteran of both World War II and the Korean War. In addition to shooting down several enemy aircraft, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross six times and earned eighteen other medals on top of that. Moreover, he’d been in the public eye when he broke the record for a transcontinental flight. Featured in newspapers and magazines, he was charming when he appeared on the TV show Name That Tune. Many people assumed that John Glenn would make the first flight because of all his qualifications.
Although the seven astronauts worked together as a team in preparation for all the Mercury, the other six were not pleased with the attention Glenn garnered. Moreover, Glenn was a churchgoer, a staunch family man, who was loyal to his wife and family, and many of the others were decidedly not. At one point when the project was in danger of being cancelled, Glenn took the other astronauts to task for straying from the straight and narrow, which they deeply resented. So, when the choice to fly first in the Mercury capsule was placed in the hands of the astronauts themselves, despite Glenn’s obvious qualifications, his colleague’s chose Alan Shepherd first and Gus Grissom second. Glenn was the backup to both those flights and was assigned the third.
Ironically, it turned out to be the best possible thing the other astronauts could have done for him. The Russians put a man in orbit before Shepherd was able to make his simple, suborbital flight. Glenn’s flight was the first attempt to put an American in orbit, and the adulation that came his way was greater than that accorded any of the other astronauts. This most qualified astronaut not only garnered fame for his flight in the Mercury capsule he named Friendship 7, but he also went on to become a US Senator, and later, at the age of 77, went into orbit again on a Space Shuttle flight to test the effects of space on older persons.
(Want to know more? Read John Glenn, A Memoir, by John Glenn with Nick Taylor, Bantam Books, 1999, as well as more recently Beyond: The Astonishing story of the First Human to Leave Our Planet and Journey into Space, by Stephen Walker, Walker, 2021, an account of the first spaceflight that includes a lot of background on the American Space Program.)
* * *
Grief is Complicated
by John Sumwalt
Psalm 126
May those who sow in tears
reap with shouts of joy.
Those who go out weeping,
bearing the seed for sowing,
shall come home with shouts of joy,
carrying their sheaves. (vv. 5-6)
Jo gave me two Louise Penny books for Christmas – murder mysteries, my favorite guilty pleasure. Don’t ask me what that says about my personality or character; I prefer not to know. I read all kinds of those potboilers, good and bad, usually before I go to bed. I find them relaxing. I don’t particularly try to guess whodunit; I just enjoy the ride.
What I like best about mystery novels is that, unlike the mysteries in my own life, everything is neatly resolved in the end. And that along the way I always learn something about myself. The author spins a story that, like Holy Scripture, can be a mirror in which we see ourselves for who and what we are. Sometimes even a bad novel, like a cracked mirror, gives us a new perspective on the cracks in our lives.
Novels – like other forms of art such as a painting, a symphony, an opera, a play, a movie, or a ballet – have transforming power, sometimes inspiring leaps of the imagination that unleash previously unknown talents and dreams. After watching a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Ballet with our 5-year-old grandson, Jo and I smiled as we observed him dancing down the corridor on the way out of the theater, mimicking the movements of the dancers we had just seen on the stage. Who knows what lasting impact that may have on his life?
Louise Penny’s first novel in the Inspector Gamache series, one of my Christmas gifts, has a passage about grief that opened a window into a heartache that I have not known how to express. Clara, an artist who is married to another artist named Peter, is sobbing continually after the murder of her dearest friend, Jane. She lashes out viciously at her husband when he tries to console her, accusing him of not caring about her or their dead friend. Peter resists the urge to hurt her back, instead offering words of reassurance and a challenge.
“’Clara, I love you,’ he says. ‘And I know you. You have to figure out what you believe – what you really, truly believe. All these years you’ve talked about God. You’ve written about your faith … Is God here now Clara? Is he in this room?’
“Peter’s kind voice calmed Clara. She began to listen.
“‘Is he here?’ Peter slowly brought his forefinger to her chest, not quite touching. ‘Is Jane with him?’ Peter pressed on. He knew where he had to go … ‘All those questions you and Jane debated and laughed about and argued over, she has the answer to. She’s met God.’
“Clara’s mouth dropped open and she stared straight ahead. There. There it was. Her mainland. That’s where she could put her grief. Jane was dead. And she was now with God. Peter was right. She either believed in God or she didn’t. Either was okay. But she could no longer believe in God and act otherwise. She did believe in God. And she believed that Jane was with him. And suddenly her pain and grief became human and natural. And survivable. She had a place to put it, a place where Jane was with God.”
Grief is complicated. Losing the loves of our lives is devastating. The finality of death, the longing, the aching in the absence of the loved one, the utter void in which we find ourselves can leave us disoriented, uncertain about beliefs that previously provided grounding. I’m thankful for the Peters in my life who have gently reminded me of who and whose I am.
*****************************************
StoryShare, March 3, 2022 issue.
Copyright 2022 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
