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Coming to the end of a year of chaos and upheaval in 1968, a glimmer of hope came from a space capsule orbiting the moon on December 24, 1968.
From outside the window of their ship, a view of the Earth peering over the horizon of the Moon. In contrast to the foreboding surface of the grey and colorless planet, the Earth seemed bright, determined and filled with hope. And those of us on Earth, gazing up from what we were convinced had become a dark and foreboding place, we saw the Moon as we did every night, a place of bright mystery and hope. However, we were seeing the earth in a way we had never seen before. And seeing this Earth, as a swirl of bright complexity, we were struck with the possibility that – beyond everything, the Earth didn’t look like such a bad place after all.
And the crew of Apollo 8 took turns reading a passage from The Book of Genesis, and finished by wishing everyone on Earth a Merry Christmas.
And maybe we weren’t so doomed after all – maybe we stopped thinking how terrible life on Earth was and started thinking there was always hope and always the possibility that good very often comes out of chaos. Maybe, just maybe, we weren’t doing as badly as we thought.
And all these years later the world is still caught up in upheaval and chaos. To many, it seems worse this time around – maybe the Earth really has lost its collective mind – that we are, in fact doomed to be the dark foreboding place.
But in 1968 we were caught up in the insanity of the moment, unable to realize at the time that things would ultimately work out. Sadly, today we’re caught up in the same insanity of a world we perceive as having lost its way.
Things worked out then – things will work out now. They always have – they always will.
And that’s the nature of life on the good Earth.
Here is that complete Christmas Eve message from Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders – the crew of Apollo 8, on the night of December 24, 1968
Happy Holidays from Past Daily.
