A response to a Letter to the Future in Times of Fear
Dear ones,
I write in a time when the world is on fire. From climate change to bombing campaigns, humanity appears grimly determined to destroy our planet for future generations.
But even with everything else going on at home and abroad, the recent journey of Artemis II around the moon captured our collective attention. Perhaps you have even seen their pictures of the bright blue dot we call Earth and of a total solar eclipse seen from behind the Moon.
I am writing to you after the space mission came up during a monthly gathering at my church. Those in attendance expressed the awe of the pictures. Yet, one of them wondered, why are we spending so much money going to space with all the problems right here? I conceded that this argument makes a valid point.
To my way of thinking, however, the mission of Artemis II is for all humankind. We can learn from the astronauts themselves, and I believe these lessons can have a positive bearing on the future.
The astronauts aboard Artemis II were Canadian and American, male and female, Black and white. Each individual was at the top of their field, excelling in bravery, expertise and knowledge. Together, they formed an incredible crew. Astronaut Christina Koch defined a “crew” as those with a “shared purpose, silent sacrifice … giving grace and accountability.”
As they went beyond our planet’s atmosphere, these astronauts challenged humankind to move beyond the “us versus them” mentality that is the source of so many problems and become one community. We share the spaceship Earth; like crew members, we are (in Koch’s words) “inescapably linked.”
Quantum physicists tell us that, whether on Earth or across the galaxy, two objects (such as subatomic particles) that seem separated by vast distances of time and space are, in fact, invisibly and intimately connected. To my way of thinking, this concept was expressed long ago as the idea of a God in whom we live, move and have our being (Acts 17:28).
What I know is that, for all their grandiose accomplishments, the crew members of Artemis II are also personally relatable. They had a clogged toilet, and they joked about it!
The crew also grieved together. One of them, with the fitting last name of Wiseman, had a new crater named after his wife, Carroll, who had died of cancer in 2020. The entire crew wept and held onto each other as they spelled out her name, letter by letter, over the transmission back to Earth. Suddenly, whether it was called the body of believers or quantum entanglement, we knew of a deep, abiding connection. Though literally farther from Earth than any other human, they felt like part of our family.
In addition to clogged toilets and potty humor, grief and sorrow are as much a part of the human experience as pride over accomplishments. Just as we do not all achieve the same things, we do not all suffer the same losses — and yet, all of us will suffer loss at some point. Despite the many differences that will surely exist in your future world, loss remains as inevitable as gravity on Earth; while it weighs on us, sharing our grief can lighten even our dark sides.
I pray that, on this whirling planet, we will remember such lessons, like the connecting power of grief, so that we might care for one another like a crew and thereby make this planet a safer, kinder and more loving place for today and for the future.
In that holy hope,
Andrew Taylor-Troutman
Rev. Dr. Andrew Taylor-Troutman is the author of eight books of short essays and poetry. He serves as the senior pastor and head of staff of Chapel in the Pines Presbyterian Church in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where he shares life with his partner, their three children and a rambunctious dog, who occasionally makes Andrew lose his religion.