Are We There Yet?

By Tom Kneier

It was a beautiful letdown when I crashed and burned;

when I found myself alone, unknown, unheard.

It was a beautiful letdown the day I knew

That all the riches this world had to offer me would never do.

In a world full of bitter pain, bitter doubts,

I was trying so hard to fit in, fit in,

Until I found out, that I don’t belong here.

from the song, “The Beautiful letdown”, by switchfoot

An American astronaut named Scott Kelly currently holds the record for the longest continuous time in space – 340 days.  From March 28, 2015 to March 1, 2016, Kelly called the International Space Station his home.  In his book, Endurance, Kelly recounts those days in vivid detail. The length of the ship consisted of three American modules and two Russian.  The port and starboard were made up of three Russian modules and one each from Europe, Japan, and the United States.  It was the combined work of fifteen nations over an eighteen month period. 

Traveling at a speed of 17,500 miles per hour, and orbiting 250 miles above the earth, the astronauts inside are treated to a sunrise and sunset every 45 minutes. 

Crew quarters are the size of a phone booth.  The U.S. segment included one each on the ceiling, floor, and two sides.  Crew members are zipped into floating sleeping bags that are attached to the wall.  Lacking gravity and in the dark, the inner ear has to guess the body’s position, so that turning on a light gives the illusion of a spinning room until the brain reorients the sensory input.

Getting dressed must be done without sitting or standing; putting on socks is the hardest because there is no gravity to help achieve the action of bending over. 

Food containers are attached to the wall.  Hot water is added through a needle into a bag of dehydrated coffee and drunk through a straw replacing the needle.  Eating must be done while holding oneself in place with a big toe tucked under one of the many handrails on the walls, ceilings, and floors.  Dehydrated eggs are spooned onto a tortilla because surface tension holds them in place.  Any beverage that escapes into the air can be bitten off and swallowed as a floating sphere.  And dining occurs on a table with Velcro strips to hold everything in place.

Absence

Even more fascinating is what’s missing from life within the I.S.S.  Without any connection to the environment on earth, the sounds of nature are provided through recordings of rainforests, birdcalls, and wind in the trees.  But one sound ranks higher than all the others: the human voice.

Human contact is the highest priority and is conducted constantly through videoconferencing, various audio connections, phone, and email.  As Kelly remarks with candor, “Everything that matters to me, every person who has ever lived and died (besides the six of us right now) is down there.”  He also talks about the eager anticipation of returning to earth.  Things that he looked forward to the most might surprise you: feeling the light weight of sheets on his bed and the fluff of a pillow; the smell of grass; the miracle of rain.  But “nothing feels as amazing as water.”  Upon his arrival home, he walked in the front door, out the back door, and jumped into the swimming pool still in his flight suit. The next best thing?  The delight of a meal around a table with loved ones.  “I’ve learned how important it is to sit and eat with other people; to be together as a family.”

However, before Kelly could enjoy all of that, he had to endure the three and a half hour return trip known as re-entry: the transition to earth that challenges the nerves and resolve of even the most seasoned astronaut.  The earth’s atmosphere is naturally resistant to objects entering from space – normally a protection for earth.  This “protection” is manifested in extreme forms of friction that Kelly compares to something like a train wreck, followed by a car wreck, followed by falling off a bike.

And once back on terra firma, there is the transition required of the body itself.  Initially joints and muscles are in constant pain, protesting the pressure of gravity, followed by nausea, fever, allergic rash, blood flowing downward to swell the ankles, and trouble walking.  But perhaps the most troubling negative effect of long-duration in space is damage to vision: swelling of the optic nerve and choroidal folds, which can cause blind spots on the retina.  Thankfully, normal vision does seem to return after some time on earth.  But more importantly, normal vision brings us to the true “focus” of these meanderings into the intrigue of space travel. 

A Different Lens

What if the world that we see with normal vision is not all there is?  What if the earth that we live in is not our real home?  What if our lives are as foreign to this planet as the lives of the astronauts were to life on the I.S. S.?  What if we’re on a temporary passage through time, and re-entry to our true permanent residence awaits us?  What if, as the Switchfoot song says, we don’t belong here?

In his classic work, The Everlasting Man, G.K. Chesterton seems to infer it:  “The simplest truth about man is that he is a very strange being; almost in the sense of being a stranger on earth.  In all sobriety, he has much more of the external appearance of one bringing alien habits from another land than of a mere growth of this one.”

In his letter to the earliest converts to Christianity in Asia Minor, Peter, the first pope, flatly states it: “Beloved, you are strangers and in exile” (1 Peter 2:11).  But if we are exiles, from what place have we been banished?  In the first book of the Bible, Genesis describes the original members of the human race being dismissed from a Paradise for transgressions against their Creator.  Seemingly, then, our version of the created universe is the broken one – one that we are responsible for breaking – one that is not what our Maker intended – one that is not home.

If that’s true, then Scott Kelly has given us profound, albeit unintended, insight into surviving in an alien world.

“For we are but travelers on a journey without yet a fixed abode; we are on our way, not yet in our native land; we are in a state of longing, not yet of enjoyment. But let us continue on our way without sloth or respite, so that we may ultimately arrive at our destination.”

From a sermon by st. augustine (4th century)

A New Focus

Constant communication with the team on earth was of the utmost importance.  For guidance, data, analysis, directives, humor, and just the reassurance that comes from human connection.  Who can forget that iconic understatement from Apollo 13: “Houston, we have a problem.”  Is God, then, not our Mission Control?  Ought we not maintain continual communication with the One who has launched us into this life?  Do we not have a God who is ready to give guidance, wisdom, grace, and reassurance on our mission if only we ask? “Ask and you will receive. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to you.” (Matthew 7:7).  Surely you’ve even heard of God’s sense of humor when we share our plans with the Creator.  

But it’s not just about asking for help.  Remember Kelly’s statement that “everything that matters to me is down there”?  Certainly it’s not a stretch to say that everything that matters to us is “up there”.  Help in time of need – absolutely.  But more importantly, it’s about developing, fostering, and strengthening our relationship with the God who loved us into being, and becoming the person that God has called us to be, in anticipation of “re-entry” to the universe we are meant to share with God for all eternity.  And let’s not forget those who have already arrived and are waiting for us.  Isn’t it only natural to ask them to intercede for our needs on the journey they’ve already completed?

Just as critical were the astronauts’ requirements for survival. Their essential need for oxygen and the constant threat of carbon dioxide in space is like our need for the Holy Spirit, the breath of God, to fill our souls, while battling the toxic forms of a “worldly spirit”. “For all that is in the world, sensual lust, enticement for the eyes, and a pretentious life, is not from the Father but is from the world”. (1 John 2:16)

Physical exercise to maintain muscle tone in space is like the spiritual disciplines of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving that strengthen our spiritual muscle tone to both resist temptation and sin, and to grow in virtue and holiness.  Without it, our spirituality atrophies.

Without gravity, sleeping is disorienting in space.  Without being “grounded” in the light of God’s truth in His word, we too can find our lives spinning out of control.

And then there’s the inevitable trauma of re-entry!  To many of us the “friction” of death and dying might very well seem like the train wreck/car wreck/bike fall described by Kelly.  After all we are in fact entering a completely new atmosphere when we pass from this life to the next.

Perhaps even the transition back to earth involving pain, fever, and nausea parallels the purging of our souls prior to entering heaven, often referred to as purgatory.

It’s easy for us to get mesmerized by this world around us.  The sun rises, the sun sets, the seasons change, the years pass by.  It gives the illusion of permanence.  We start feeling at home here and act as if it will never end.

But what if life on this planet and in this universe is like the ISS hurtling through space at 17,500 miles per hour?  What if time is literally flying and our trip through space is coming to an end?

Should we not live just that way?  Treating prayer, scripture, and the sacraments as essential as the air we breathe?  Resisting sin and temptation as the toxins that can make us spiritually sick or have the potential to be lethal?  And longing for the day when we arrive home, running through the door to dive into the pool of Living Water, and then taking our place at the Banquet Table of Everlasting Life?

From a letter to Diognetus (2^nd century A.D.)

Christians are indistinguishable from other men

either by nationality, language or customs. 

They do not inhabit separate cities of their own,

or speak a strange dialect, or follow some outlandish way of life.

Their teaching is not based upon reveries inspired by the curiosity of men.

Unlike some other people, they champion no purely human doctrine.

With regard to dress, food and manner of life in general,

they follow the customs of whatever city they happen to be living in,

whether it is Greek or foreign.

And yet there is something extraordinary about their lives.

They live in their own countries as though they were only passing through.

They play their full role as citizens, but labor under all the disabilities of aliens.

Any country can be their homeland, but for them their homeland,

wherever it may be, is a foreign country.

Like others, they marry and have children, but they do not expose them.

They share their meals, but not their wives.

They live in the flesh, but they are not governed by the desires of the flesh.

They pass their days upon earth, but they are citizens of heaven.

Obedient to the laws, they yet live on a level that transcends the law.