Pastor Nancy's Reflections

One of the best books I have read this year is “Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space” by Adam Higgenbotham.  It tells of the events, discussions, tests and decisions that led to the launch of the Challenger spacecraft in January 1986. Anyone who was alive at that time remembers that it ended in a disastrous explosion just seconds after launch. Seven astronauts aboard perished as the doomed craft crashed into the Atlantic Ocean. The story told in Higgenbotham’s book is truly riveting. In fact, I finally had to set a timer to remind me to stop reading and get on with my work!

The book reminded me of a story once told by my colleague Glenn MacDonald. After the terrible ending of the spacecraft, among the salvaged material found floating near the site of impact was a soccer ball that had been brought aboard by astronaut Ellison Onizuka, the first Asian American to travel in space.  Onizuka was an assistant coach for his daughter Janelle’s  soccer team at Houston’s Clear Lake High School. One of the personal items Onizuka chose to carry into space was a ball that had been signed by everyone on his daughter’s team. 

After Onizuka’s death, his family decided to give the ball back to Clear Lake High School where Janelle tearfully presented it in a ceremony that was supposed to have been led by her Dad. For thirty years, the ball sat in a display case in the hallway, gradually fading from the community’s collective memory. 

But in October 2016 another astronaut whose daughter also attended Clear Lake High School --  Colonel Shane Kimbrough -- was given the chance to carry something personal on his flight to the International Space Station. He asked permission to take the soccer ball. On that mission the ball spent 173 days aboard the space station, orbited the Earth nearly 3,000 times and finally came home on April 10, 2017.   Now it sits in a prominent display case at Clear Lake School, passed every day by students including Onizuka’s grandchildren.

The ending of the story somehow gives us a satisfying sense of conclusion or closure. When an event or a story is incomplete  there is something in human nature that makes us feel restless and dissatisfied. There is an ancient longing embedded in human experience. This world doesn’t feel big enough. Life doesn’t last long enough. We ache for what seems incomplete in this world.

Why do we humans feel this way?   

Saint Augustine once said that God has created us for Himself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Him. God has built within us a yearning that cannot be filled by any earthly experience or relationship, but only by giving our hearts to Him. One of the purposes of our Lenten experience and meditation is to awaken this longing and prepare our Spirit for the joyous revelation of Easter.

For Jesus’ followers the shock of his death sent them into a state of deep depression and fear. But after that morning when the women found the tombstone rolled away and the tomb empty, they began to realize that Jesus had not been defeated by death. He had conquered humanity’s greatest enemy.

Because of Jesus’ great sacrifice on the cross, we who are followers of Jesus live in confidence that, even in the times of loss and confusion and tragedy in this life, our ultimate destiny is protected by the loving promise that all will one day be made right  by the God who rules both this world and the next!

May the joy of Easter be full for each of you!

Pastor Nancy Becker

Parish Associate