A Message from Space

When Victor Glover spoke these words from space, from the Artemis II ... “Love God with all that you are… and love your neighbor as yourself” ... they somehow landed differently, didn't they?

I mean, imagine it. He’s not standing in a church or sitting comfortably at home. He’s floating above the earth, looking down at this glowing, fragile, unbelievably beautiful planet. There are no borders; no noise. Just this quiet, breathtaking view of everything we know … held together by what looks like the thinnest veil.

And from there, that simple command ... to love ... suddenly feels bigger ... clearer;

more all-consuming.

It makes you wonder 'how complicated have we made things, anyhow?

Because from up there, you wouldn’t see divisions the way we do. You wouldn’t see who belongs where, or who’s right or wrong. You’d just see one shared home. One human family. All of us moving around, carrying our stories, our worries, our hopes ... on this tiny, shining sphere.

(Psalm 8:3–4):

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?

And somehow, in that kind of view, loving your neighbor doesn’t feel like a lofty ideal. It just feels… obvious. What else would you do, when gifted such awesomeness?

And loving God? Maybe it starts there ... in that quiet moment of realizing, this didn’t have to be beautiful … but it is. The colors, the curves, the way light rests on the water. It feels intentional. Like art, not accident.

There’s something humbling about that, but not in a way that makes you feel small in a bad sense. More like… you’re part of something vast and meaningful, even if you can’t fully explain it.

I think that’s what makes his words linger. They aren’t complicated. They don’t need to be.

Love God. Love people.

And perhaps, if we could just borrow his view for a moment ... really see what he saw ... we’d hold things a little more loosely … and each other a little more closely.

It’s kind of amazing to think that sometimes it takes leaving the earth

… to remind us how to live on it.