My mind is blown this week to be reminded that it has been 40 years since the Challenger space shuttle tragically exploded killing all seven people aboard. I was driving up US route 23 to a meeting at the Methodist Theological School in Delaware, Ohio when I heard the news on my car radio. That was half a lifetime ago, but as a lifelong fan of space flight and exploration I remember it like yesterday.
For the 40 years since I have cherished a very powerful and concrete image from that disaster of what it means to have faith and be at home in the universe. Part of being at peace is an ability to find meaning and truth in unexpected and even tragic circumstances. For me, the final words from Commander Dick Scobee before the explosion have become a mantra for me of peaceful living. About sixty seconds after blast off Mission Control informed the Challenger crew that they were going back to full power, and Commander Scobee’s confident reply was, “Roger, Go With Full Throttle Up.”
When we are at peace we dare to live life with full throttle up, knowing as those astronauts did that there are serious risks in living. We also know also that there are far more serious risks in refusing to face life’s challenges honestly and courageously. Chuck Yeager, a test pilot famous for his description of those early space pioneers who had “All the Right Stuff,” said after the Challenger explosion that “every astronaut and test pilot knows that such a tragedy can happen anytime you go up. But you can’t dwell on the danger or you would not be able to do your job.” Then he added, “There’s not much you can do about it anyway.”
Life is like that. We are all travelers on spaceship Earth, and like the Challenger 7, we are all sitting on enough firepower to blow us all to kingdom come several times over. That’s enough in itself to make us a little queasy isn’t it, even if we didn’t have to cope with the routine hassles of living—the doubts, the fears, the guilt, and the disappointments. But we all do have to cope with those things every day and much more these days. And we all need a faith that will help us feel more at home and at peace in the midst of our hectic, frightening, and often chaotic lives.
And simple belief in long-held maxims is not enough for times of real testing. Belief is holding certain ideas about something, or about life. Faith, on the other hand, is a more total and deeper response of inner peace and trust. For example, it is one thing to believe a parachute will open properly, to understand the physics of why and how parachutes work. But it is quite another thing to have enough faith or trust in a parachute to strap one on your back and jump out of a plane at 10,000 feet.
Faith, according to theologian Wilfred Cantwell Smith, is “a quality of human living. At its best it has taken the form of serenity and courage and loyalty and service: a quiet confidence and joy which enable one to feel at home in the universe, and to find meaning in the world and in one’s own life, a meaning that is profound and ultimate, and is stable no matter what may happen.”
To be at peace means to “feel at home in the universe,” to know as the “Desiderata” says, that “You are a child of the universe, no less than the rocks the trees and the stars, you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive God to be….and keep peace with your soul.” To be at peace at home in the universe is to be at peace with oneself and God.
I want to pick a bone with one phrase from that quote above. I am certainly not convinced the universe is unfolding as it should. Not one bit convinced, and that means it takes even more guts and faith just now to say, “Roger, go with full throttle up.”
That’s how I want to live my life, whatever the circumstances, full throttle up! I’m painfully aware that for my body’s full throttle is a whole lot slower than it was 40 years ago, or even 5 years ago; but my the Holy Spirit is still infinitely more powerful than that Saturn V rocket that launched so many astronauts into space. Full throttle doesn’t even get my old bones off the ground, but with God’s help my spirit can soar.
That’s what Jesus came to show us, that no matter what happens to us or around us, we have the power of the Holy Spirit to live life fully and abundantly. So wherever God calls us to go this week, my prayer is that we can respond with confidence and faith, and go with full throttle up!
Peacefully Harsh 