Sunday, April 28, 2013

QOTM...*: James Lovell, Norman Cousins and God!

(*Quotes of the Month)

We learned a lot about the moon, but what we really learned was about the earth: the fact that from the distance of the moon you can put your hand up and hide it behind your thumb. Everything that you’ve ever known – your loved ones, your business, the problems of the earth itself – all behind your thumb; how insignificant we all really are, but then how fortunate to be able to enjoy loving here amongst the beauty of the earth itself.
~~ Jim Lovell, Apollo 8 and 13

What was most significant about the lunar voyage was not that man set foot on the moon but that they set eye on the earth.

~~ Norman Cousins, Journalist

Earthrise
A couple weeks ago I posted the iconic photo Earthrise in anticipation of Earth Day this past Monday. Hit the emboldened word to see my post about it, one of the most celebrated environmental photographs of all time. Though I typically only include Gail’s and my photography here in my blog, I chose to make an exception with that post.

In doing some simple research on the photo, however, I ran across some quotes relative to the Apollo moon mission that I thought I’d also enjoy sharing for my QOTM this time around. You see them above. Additionally, these have tempted me to share a second famous photo not by us, entitled The Blue Marble, and I 
yield to that temptation here!

The Blue Marble
The Blue Marble was taken nearly four years after Earthshine was snapped. It’s details? It was taken from a distance of 28,000 miles on December 7, 1972, by the crew of Apollo 17 on the way to the moon, the last of the Apollo missions. It was the first real time photo ever taken of the fully lighted, entire earth. Why the first with all the previous missions? Because the astronauts had the sun fully at their back for the first time. It was also the first photo of the Antarctic icecap, as it was the first time an Apollo capsule’s specific trajectory toward the moon allowed it to be seen in that manner. And as you can see, prominent also in the photo is Africa, Madagascar and the Saudi Peninsula. Click on the photo itself to the right to see the image in all its beauty.

John Muir, the American naturalist of whom I wrote in January, referred to the earth not as a blue marble but as a beautiful dewdrop among the stars. I like that, too.

I don’t know about you, but these famous photos make my heart beat a little faster, to see the earth as God sees it. So what does God have to say about it? How about some quotes from the Almighty?

Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool.
~~ God, Isaiah 66:1

Or how about this one?

With my great power and outstretched arm I made the earth and its people and the animals that are on it, and I give it to anyone I please.
~~ God, Jeremiah 27:5

I am so glad it pleased God to give it to us. Finally, one more:

It’s a small world after all.
~~ God

Or was that one Walt Disney? Whichever, it still fits. God made it that way. Respond with me if you’d like:

Oh God, You Who have ordered this wondrous world, and Who know all things in earth and heaven: so fill our hearts with trust in You that by night and day, at all times and in all seasons, we may without fear commit all that we have and hope to be to Your never-failing love, for this life and the life to come; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (Methodist Book of Worship)

~~ RGM, April 27, 2013

P.S. Next up next week? “From my Journal…”

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