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The Many Faces of Worship: Interstellar Edition
Here's a story on the famed Apollo 11 mission that missed both the elementary school text books as well as the 40th anniversary celebration. It turns out that Buzz Aldrin celebrated the Eucharist on the surface of the Moon. Check out this quote.
“In the radio blackout, I opened the little plastic packages which contained the bread and the wine. I poured the wine into the chalice our church had given me. In the one-sixth gravity of the moon, the wine slowly curled and gracefully came up the side of the cup. Then I read the Scripture, ‘I am the vine, you are the branches. Whosoever abides in me will bring forth much fruit. Apart from me you can do nothing.’ I had intended to read my communion passage back to earth, but at the last minute [they] had requested that I not do this. NASA was already embroiled in a legal battle with Madelyn Murray O’Hare, the celebrated opponent of religion, over the Apollo 8 crew reading from Genesis while orbiting the moon at Christmas. I agreed reluctantly. …I ate the tiny Host and swallowed the wine. I gave thanks for the intelligence and spirit that had brought two young pilots to the Sea of Tranquility. It was interesting for me to think: the very first liquid ever poured on the moon, and the very first food eaten there, were the communion elements.”
HT to Omar. Read the whole story on Eric Metaxas blog.
Labels: many faces of worship
posted by John David Walt | at 7/22/2009 01:13:00 PM
Today...
1 Comments:
LOVED this story!!
(When I was younger, I wanted to be an astronaut!).
I'm not kidding...I was just thinking this past Monday (the Anniversary), what must it be like to be one of these men who walked on the moon? And, what must it be like to see the earth from the heavens?
Wow... the communion elements and reading from the book of John on the moon?!!
The next time I'm able to look at the moon, it will be pretty contemplative in light of these things...
Found some more about it here (last paragraph under "Descent"):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11
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