Hope in Perilous Times
So often these days, I find myself troubled over the course of our nation. Then we do something like this: an American rocket liftoff delivering a space capsule, capable of carrying a crew, to an altitude of 3,600 miles above the earth. We haven't sent a crew capsule into that high an orbit since Apollo. I am reminded of Apollo 8, which launched 46 years ago this month. It was the first manned flight to leave earth orbit, enter lunar orbit, and return. The year was 1968, a ye ar that had seen the Tet Offensive in Viet Nam, the murder of Martin Luther King in Memphis, the murder of Robert Kennedy in San Francisco, the Soviet Union's invasion of Czechoslovakia, and rioting at the 1968 Democratic Convention. It was a year of hardship and strife, but, as it came to a close, Apollo 8 gave us something else: a view of the earth from lunar orbit along with a recitation from the book of Genesis on Christmas Eve, 1968 televised to the entire world, and, along with that, hope.