Hyundai, Space, and a Special Message

Just in case you missed this awesomeness, it's well worth your 4 minutes.  These folks are in our church family.

Space Nerd-ness

Because I pastor within a stone's throw of NASA's Johnson Space Center, we have a lot of folks tied to the space industry.  And what our people are into, I want to be into.  In this case, that's easy because (a) I'm a nerd at heart, (b) my mom was a math teacher, (c) my little brother has his Ph.D. in aerospace engineering and now is faculty-ized at VaTech, and (d) it's space we're talking about people!

So when Space Shuttle Endeavor flew right over my office multiple times on Wednesday morning, I had to grab some footage.  Here's what I got.  And for the record, it was a LOT closer than it appears in the footage.

Even cooler:  the kids were out of school because of a highly strange midweek Teacher Work Day, so the voice you hear in the beginning belongs to the Ninja saying, "That is awesome!"

And kudos to a church member who caught this awesome still image.

Something that large.  Being carried along by something even larger.  Space shuttles.  Burdens.  Make your own application here...

Tree of Life Day 6: Psalm 19

As we watched the night sky with our neighbor last night, the International Space Station streaked overhead.  Imagine covering horizon to horizon in about 3 minutes.  18,000 miles per hour (give or take a few hundred) is fast.  It's the second time we've seen it and I'm just as awestruck and dumbfounded this time as I was last time.

Every time something space-related comes up, I can't help but think about the first verse of the psalm from today's reading.  Our friend Terry who piloted the Space Shuttle took that verse into space with him on a wristband.  The heavens tell of the glory of God.  Everything we can look up and see reminds us that there is an incredible, glorious, purposeful Creator out there.  Wow.

But that's not all.  What the theologians call general revelation (things that tell us there is a god) isn't enough to satisfy the human soul.  Special revelation tells us what God is like.  And that's what unfolds in the last half of the psalm.  Through His Word, we come to know who He is and what He's like.

The psalm closes with a great prayer we need to pray often:  may words and thoughts be acceptable to this God.  Amen.

Just because this is awesome

For all the space nerds out there and for those who enjoy amazing video that you just can't fabricate, I present to you the launch of STS-124 Discovery as seen from a tiny camera attached to one of the solid rocket boosters.  A couple of things to know about the video:

When it starts, you're looking at the side of the external fuel tank.

The fireworks get started about 1:40 or so.  Fast forward to there.

There's a blacked out part for about 30 seconds at about the 5:00 mark.

Enjoy!

God's Timing

Both where and when are important in decision-making.  Meaning, God's direction and timing are equally important.

How true this has played out in my life.  For instance, we turned down the current position I hold once because we didn't sense God was done yet where we were.  What that did was open me up to more understanding of what it means to pastor as well as ready the church (in some profound ways - personnel, finances, etc.) for the ministry God was leading me toward.

With NASA on the ropes, jobs still questionable, and other economic stuff still shaky, remember that His timing and direction are equally important.  If you're jonesing for a relationship or a reset or a restart, remember that His timing and direction are equally important.  Whatever you're facing, it's true.

NASA's future

It seems to me that not having a low-earth orbit option is a bad idea.  Paying $50M to the Russians for the equivalent of a taxi ride is an expensive taxi ride on both a fiscal and prominence scale.  It makes much more sense to me to keep flying the shuttle (I've been told for $2B per year) to ferry astronauts and cargo while pouring the other $16B into destination-oriented projects.  I'd LOVE to see a human on the moon again and then on Mars.  I wouldn't gripe about taxes for that kind of stuff.

But that's just me thinking thoughts.