Slipped the Surly Bonds of Earth to Touch the Face of God
I often have to remind myself that teenagers today weren’t even alive when the crew of the Space Shuttle Challenger died right before our eyes on this date, January 28, twenty-five years ago. They weren’t assembled in front of a little television, rolled into the history room on a black cart from the library. They weren’t happy to be avoiding a boring lecture by getting to watch … hey … what just happened? Did it just EXPLODE?
Yes. Right there. It did explode. Seven people were there and then they were not there. They “slipped the surly bonds of earth and touched the face of God.” And we were flooded with adrenaline. Fear. Questions. It was the defining moment for my generation.
For my parents, it was JFK being shot. For young people today, it’s 9/11. The moment when time stands still and we realize that we have actually watched human beings die. This is a normal occurrence for doctors, nurses, fire and safety professionals, military personnel … but not for us.
How do we process the shock and grief? Back in 1986, when 3 television networks were all we had for receiving visual information, we gathered that night and we listened to our president. I was glad to take four minutes again this morning to remember how he helped us to grieve—but to grieve with hope.
This is a great speech by a great man. I encourage you to take a few moments and watch it:
(I guess the ability to embed the video has been removed by YouTube now. Bummer. But you can still see it here if you click through.)
PS
If you have negative comments to make about President Reagan, please don’t leave them here. I will only delete them because the focus of this post is to remember a tragedy and to remember how the president of the United Stated of America helped schoolchildren (like me!) and adults to grieve. It is not to get into a debate about President Reagan.
I bring this up because I am always amazed and saddened when I put up a post to remember and honor someone (the veterans of wars who we honor on Veterans Day and the fallen military personnel and their widows and orphans whom we remember on Memorial Day) and inevitably someone puts up a comment or a FaceBook note angrily airing their thoughts about some negative aspect of whatever it is we are trying to remember and honor. I just hate it. I want to ask them, “What is your problem?! Why oh WHY must you take the focus away on THIS day from THIS remembrance?” But then again, I REALLY don’t want to engage them and raise their ire.
It’s like the creepy scientific-american-rational-naturalists who must just TROLL YouTube looking for anything Christian so that they can leave mean comments on the video. Our family video of my sweet little four year-old Sophia singing the books of the Bible song fairly regularly gets little MEAN comments from RUDE jerks. I mean seriously. What kind of sad life must a person lead if they have to trash a four year-old kid singing a song? It’s so pathetic. True pathos. To paraphrase Dan Doriani: I pity them for their graceless criticism because it reveals the appalling condition of their hearts.
To close out my thoughts on this topic, I could quote Scripture. But instead, I will quote that great liberal American teleplay writer, Aaron Sorkin, in the mouth of his most liberal character on The West Wing, Toby Ziegler. The episode is “The Women of Qumar.” One of the story lines is about some liberals who want to show up at the opening of the Pearl Harbor Exhibit at the Smithsonian to protest America’s (many) failures and brutalities. Oh, how this group felt they were in the right! (And they did have legitimate complaints.) Oh how quick they were to list out the failures of America! (But I bet they would call themselves “proud Americans who love their country”. I have many friends who I think would put themselves happily into this category.)
But. Even the fictional Toby Ziegler and the real-life Aaron Sorkin knew enough to say this:
BARTLET
What’s going on with the Smithsonian?
TOBY
It’ll be fine, sir.
BARTLET
Where are you leading them?
TOBY
Not to turn a blind eye to the dark points of history, for sure, but I think
there’s a time and place for that, and this isn’t it.
Preach it, Aaron Sorkin! Oh, and yes, angry people who don’t like President Reagan: there is a time and place for your comments. But this is not it.
PPS
Just to be clear … not ALL rational-naturalist-scientific-americans are jerks who troll YouTube looking for little Christian kids to mock. No way! I know many who are humble, kind, and gracious—-WAY more humble, kind, and gracious than many Christians. Which is, of course, extraordinarily sad. So I use that as an example, but I could just as easily use a MILLION examples of Christians being mean. Just to be clear.