Earth Rise - by Astronaut William Anders (Christmas Eve, 1968)

One of the most significant anniversaries in human history has just passed, with little notice.

Christmas, 1968 – 40 years ago – Apollo 8 was the first manned space vehicle to completely escape the pull of earth’s gravity, travel to and around the moon and return.  This picture – one of the most famous in the world – is called “Earth Rise” – and captures the view as the Apollo spacecraft came out from behind the moon and back into the view of our home planet.

If you’ve seen the Al Gore slide show or his film, ‘Inconvenient Truth’ you will recall that he begins his presentation with this and one other picture of earth from space.  His point – and it’s a very valid one – is that this event, one of the most unique in human history, represented a particular opportunity for us.  For the first time we could see our world from the outside.  We could see how beautiful it is.  We could see how fragile it is.  We began to realize how really small it is compared to the vast, vast universe we were just beginning to discover.

It was an opportunity for humility.  A chance to stop, and think, and begin to do things a bit more carefully than we had been doing up to that point.  And we started to do that – or some of us did.  The first Earth Day celebration was only sixteen months away, and it looked like genuine concern for the condition of the earth – our world – God’s gift to us – might start to become a major priority for human societies and governments.

It would appear that this was only appearance.  The forty years since ‘Earth Rise’ have not been good for God’s earth – or for the people living here.  Maybe it’s time to stop.  To reconsider.  To start over (again).

There is considerable question as to whether the earth can stand another 40 years like the last.

Your thoughts?