TGIF

It's late on Friday night, and we have returned from a wonderful week with our kids and grand kids.  We are exhausted (duh).

After such a high, I am feeling melancholy.  I just watched a recording from 60 Minutes last week about the moon landing in 1968, 50 years ago at Christmastime.  It was a terrible year filled with riots and assassinations that would alter the course of our country's history.  The moon landing and orbits by Apollo 8 crew was watched by more people than ever before.  And to us, these men said, upon viewing the awesome splendor of planet earth rising over the moonscape:

William Anders

We are now approaching lunar sunrise, and for all the people back on Earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send to you.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

James Lovell

And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

Frank Borman

And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called the Seas: and God saw that it was good.

And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with good night, good luck, a Merry Christmas – and God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.

Well, dear reader, I confess that I wept. Tears flowed because I remember well that horrid year even though I was only eleven years old; tears flowed because my young self thought, perhaps, the world was coming to an end; tears flowed because I was caught up in the wonder of what people and science could do; tears came and washed over me for all the heartache that the last 50 years has brought, both to me and the world.  That tiny globe floating in the darkness, that orb that we all live on and could do so much good with, if we had the collective will.  That we don't possess that will is a devastating realization.Of course this is a dark assessment, the Night of our existence.  I also know the light of Day, and the joy it can bring.  I mostly hang on to the Light.  Not the light of Christianity which I do not embrace or believe, but simply the light and dark that is the cosmic reality of the universe.

But like many of you, I worry. I worry mostly for the world our grandchildren, and their children, will inherit.  I'm going to be an old woman in the blink of an eye, a person who easily gets cold and no amount of thermostatic increase will help much.  I'm going to face the assaults and ailments of an aging body but also the freedom and release from the passions of youth: the aspirations for material goods and for conquests of all kinds.  I am already experiencing the detachment of someone who has lived long and seen a lot. So, perhaps I can let go and breathe a little easier.

Then I read with horror of the death of another migrant child, or the trauma our children are suffering from the 'active shooter' drills in our schools, and I want to possess super human strength and rip some heads off: the NRA, the GOP, FOX News, fat cat one percenters who live only for themselves behind their guarded gates and security systems.

You'd think after all these years I would find a way to have some peace about all of this.  But I don't.  Not sure I ever will.  Or should.

And then there is this:  Astronaut Anders so taken with the sight, that even though they had limited amounts of film and were supposed to be taking pictures of the moon, he was moved to make a series of photographs, including this:

Over and out.  God bless all of you, all of you on the good Earth.