To the Stars Above or the Mud Below: What Will It Be America?

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, …it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.” --Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, 1859

I could not help but feel whip sawed at the contrasts in Wednesday’s (April 1^st) news cycle.  In the early evening we saw Artemis II successfully liftoff, as it began its weeklong mission to transport four astronauts to the moon and back. This is American’s first manned visit to our close celestial neighbor since December 19^th, 1972. That day Apollo 17 lifted off from the lunar surface, with mission commander Eugene Cernan offering as departing words, “God willing, we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind."

Looks like we just might accomplish that hope and prayer: return to the moon but maybe even more important, in the process remind ourselves as a nation we are still capable of achieving big things, if we work constructively and all together.  We can still trust in science as a dependable measure of life. We can remind the world that America once was, and might be again, a nation that acts with competence and integrity, and can be depended upon to help lead the world.

Or I suppose that instead we could just devote our national resources to war and conquest and violence. The Presidential budget request for the Department of Defense is $1.5 trillion, a record. Whoopee. We could threaten anyone on earth who gets in our way, even nations who were once our faithful and true allies. We could put the power to make war in the hands of someone who never served in the military, who mocked decorated Senator and Navy Pilot John McCain for getting shot down and held as a POW during the Vietnam War.

That’s the basic “mindset” expressed by our “Commander in Chief” on the very same day as Artemis II’s launch, just a few hours later in a speech. He bragged that, when it comes to our current war with Iran, “We are going to bring them back to the stone ages where they belong…”

I suppose that’s just what we should expect from a cave man.

What a stark and sobering contrast and contradiction about just whom the United States of America is in 2026.

We can shoot for the stars, or we can wallow in the mud.

We can work together with our longtime neighbors like Canada in trust and faithfulness and invite a Canadian, Jeremy Hansen, to be a part of the Artemis’ crew.  Or we can tell our one time friends around the globe that its every man for themselves. When it comes to oil and the Strait of Hormuz, well, good luck with that. Don’t expect us to help.

In my religious tradition Holy Week is always about getting to a place of light and hope after moving through days of darkness and despair.  From Good Friday to Easter Sunday.  From stormy shadows at night to bright skies in the morning. From the cross to the empty tomb.

Really, that’s what so many humans, I’d say most humans, strive for every day. To be hopeful and then to live so as to give others hope too. Hope for a better world and for better lives. Hope for more love and less hate. More peace and less war. Most religions seek this hope as well: the greatest good for the greatest number of people across Creation.

But to get such a place of hope is to be and to do that which is essentially good and decent and kind and visionary and loving and peaceful. To achieve hope is to believe we can do better. We will do better. Like sending a rocket to the moon and giving hope to millions. 

And the way to lose hope is to use violence and threats against anyone who doesn’t agree with our bellicose, chaotic leader, he who likes nothing better than to make war, abroad and at home.  

Me? I’ll take the stars and I’ll take hope and I’ll take peace every single day. I hope you will too.

(The views expressed in this essay do not necessarily reflect the views of the people and church I serve nor the United Church of Christ.)

The Reverend John F. Hudson is Senior Pastor of the Pilgrim Church, United Church of Christ, in Sherborn, Massachusetts (pilgrimsherborn.org). He blogs at sherbornpastor.blogspot.com and is a resident scholar at the Collegeville Institute at Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota. For twenty-five years he was a columnist whose essays appeared in newspapers throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He has served churches in New England since 1989. For comments, please be in touch: pastorjohn@pilgrimsherborn.org.