Can someone please help me understand something?
It was 50 years ago this week that this country, in a less volatile time (in many ways) did the almost impossible task of putting a man on the moon.
I wasn’t there. I didn’t cover it. But, I like so many others watched it in the wee small hours of a morning, on a Zenith, black and white television, complete with rabbit ears and long before we created a remote.
In challenging this country to get to the moon, President Kennedy said “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things. Not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”
He challenged and we responded.
The landing on the moon was a milestone.
But it leads us to ask other questions.
How is it that in this world, at this time and at this age that we were able to put a man on the moon and return them safely but we are unable to speak civilly or to act responsibly or with a glad hand or a kind heart.
How is it that we were able to come together in the hopes of a nation but decades later when we should be better we can barely be in the same room with each other?
Wouldn’t it be nice if by going to the moon we could also live in peace.
“Tranquility Base-- The Eagle has landed” the first words spoken on the moon.
Wouldn’t be great if we could build a new Tranquility Base----by living in peace.
And, if we could live in peace and tranquility, that would give so much more meaning to Neal Armstrong’s most memorialized line, “that’s one small step for a man. One giant leap for mankind.”
And, what a thought that would be.
(Photo Credit: NASA)