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The Pastoral Lens
What Can We Learn From The Columbia?
Tuesday, February 4, 2003
Shock and horror once again filled the living rooms of North American homes as news of the space shuttle, Columbia, came splashing across our television sets. With only 15 minutes until a spectacular Florida landing, suddenly the Texas sky was filled with thunder and fire. Stunned onlookers couldn't believe their eyes, and neither could NASA. It was simply a disaster of enormous proportions.I vividly remember the Challenger disaster in 1986. I was a student at the University of Windsor and working 2 jobs to pay my tuition. One of those jobs was a delivery job for a local furniture store. My coworker and I were delivering a couch to a ladyís house at the time of Challenger's departure. We paused to watch this historic event and got the shock of our lives when it blew up shortly after take-off. As I recall, we spent a lot longer at that lady's house than originally planned, taking in the horrible details of the disaster's aftermath.
With the advances in technology over the years, we find it hard to comprehend that such tragedies can still occur. We've come to expect that things will just automatically go off as planned. As the television screen showed the background of each team memebr of the Columbia, it was easy to see that all of these people were seasoned professionals in their chosen fields with oodles of experience behind them. The space ship they were travelling in was a state of the art invention in which engineers had gone over carefully with a fine-toothed comb. Their entire voyage was tracked from the space centre. What could possibly have gone wrong?
I think there is a sobering lesson to learn from this most recent of human tragedies. We are not so self-sufficient as we think ourselves to be. Our post-Christian culture has taught us that we don't need God. We've been there, done that. A very wise man, Solomon, once wrote about what he discovered about manís wisdom after learning his lesson the hard way. He said, "I have seen all the works which have been done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and striving after wind. What is crooked cannot be straightened, and what is lacking cannot be counted." (Ecclesiastes 1:14-15). This man had it all: wine, women, and riches, and great wisdom. Nevertheless, he found it all to be unfulfilling. Something was missing which no earthly pleasure or accomplishment could provide. He was taught what this was from an early age but departed from it in his pursuit of pleasure and knowledge. Later, though, at the end of his life he put it all into perspective: "The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. For God will bring every act to judgement, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or eveil." (Ecclesiastes 12:13,14).
Space travel will go on. There will be other missions to the great beyond. However, will we realize that God is above all and in all, or will we just continue marching on, concurring with one another that there will be those "blips" on the screen of life every so often? I hope we can learn from this tragedy and put our lives in a proper perspective.
