September | 2012 | mercy's musings

July 2019

Last week marked the Golden anniversary of the coolest event that took place in the universe, since God created the heavens and the earth and hung the moon.

For a refreshing change, the almost non-stop and weeks-long TV coverage was entertaining to watch as opposed to it being repetitious and tiresome.

Neil Armstrong passed from his earthly bonds 7 years ago next month, to go meet his Maker, giving new meaning to prophet Isaiah’s lyrics, ‘God holds you in the palm of His hands’. Twice.

While the commemorations are still on-going, I’m re-posting something that I penned at the time of Neil’s passing.

NASA had gathered the brightest minds ever assembled for a single project, the long Moonshot, with not even hairline differences that distinguished between their intellect.

But only one could be The First Man.

A graduate of Purdue University in Indiana, Neil was nominated to be it, for an uncanny ability he possessed to stay above the fray.

That cool nonchalance is what separated him from the rest, the other aeronautical geniuses. Calmness in the face of calamity. Collectedness during catastrophe.

Neil was said to have resisted the Manhattan ticker tape parade until NASA made it requirement.

Meanwhile, Michel Collins who was soaring in the Columbia capsule high above the earth and the moon all by himself, was described as ‘the loneliest human’ in the universe at the time.

For 24 hours, he was all alone except for the presence of his Keeper. (kind of like Daniel in the lion’s den!). Imagine.

It was all so cool that it’s hard to believe it ever happened.

Below is my blog from 7 years ago.

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September 2012

Yesterday, as I’m sure you were aware, was Neil Armstrong’s funeral. As part of his farewell from this earth, his family asked the mourners that:
whenever we see a full moon, take a good look at it and give Neil a wink.

So don’t laugh when I say this, in the late evening, when the moon had fully emerged, right above our driveway, we went out to gaze at it, to say goodbye to Neil.

Yesterday also happened to be a ‘blue moon’ night, (when a second full moon happens in the same month of the western calendar), a cosmic event that happens only once every 2-3 years (hence the expression ‘once in a blue moon’).
So, as I looked at this resplendent object high up in the night sky, this is what came to me:
the One who ‘hung the moon’ called one of the humblest among all His creation, back ‘home’ and He also winked and said, ‘job well done, son!’.

A little-known fact about the Apollo 11 moon mission is, that Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the moon, had carried consecrated Eucharist to this celestial body’s surface. There was some brouhaha over this at the time, ‘separation of church and state’, and all that, but to me, it was more like a fusion of the most acute intellect and the deepest of faith.

Buzz observed it in remembrance of the ‘Prince of Peace’. These astronauts celebrating this solemn act, came bringing ‘peace for all mankind’ and to the heavens.
They left a plaque on the lunar base, ‘The Sea of Tranquility’, that simply states, ‘we came in peace for all mankind’.
I presume it’s still there. Along with the American flag.

Peace onto earth. Peace back to the heavens.

This kind of colliding of the divine and the earthly, has taken place since the beginning of time. Since the beginning of creation. Always at the right time and at the right place.
One holding the moon in His hand, and the one who was chosen to set foot on it, face to face. Up close and personal.

I got goosebumps thinking of all this and i had to share it. Don’t laugh.

“When I look at the sky, which you have made, at the moon and the stars, which you set in their places” – Psalm 8:3

In peace…