Henri Nouwen podcast -- Three Spiritual Disciplines

I intended to post this several days ago to prepare for Lent-- The podcast at the top of the link --
Three spiritual disciplines for a busy life:  prayer, slowing down and sense control.  This seems an appropriate way to start Lent.   It is 27 minutes long.

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?shva=1#search/henri+nouwen/W  hctKJVjXpGwkbBhTmZdQPbVfpZvqpFzXKWVWDkwHbsGdMsPxtCrfhpTNJbfXZcmRMhnVnV

Communion on the Moon

With the beginning of Lent, I wanted to post this.   I first saw it in 2012 when a friend and I were emailing each other.  I certainly never knew about this as part of the lunar landing and moon walk.  I am in awe that Buzz Aldrin did this.

Subject: Communion on the Moon

I presume that most of us were unaware of this story.  I didn't know this, but it's awesome! 42 years ago... Many have not heard of this before . . .

Communion on the Moon: July 20, 1969

(This is an article by Eric Metaxas)

Forty-two years ago two human beings changed history by walking on the surface of the moon.  But what happened before Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong exited the Lunar Module is perhaps even more amazing.  If only because so few people know about it. "I'm talking about the fact that Buzz Aldrin took communion on the surface of the moon.”  Some months after his return, he wrote about it in Guideposts Magazine.

And a few years ago I had the privilege of meeting him myself.  I asked him about it and he confirmed the story to me, and I wrote about it in my book, "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About God (But Were Afraid to Ask)".

The background to the story is that Aldrin was an elder at his Presbyterian Church in Texas during this period in his life, and knowing that he would soon be doing something unprecedented in human history, he felt he should mark the occasion somehow, and he asked his minister to help him.  And so the minister consecrated a communion wafer and a small vial of communion wine.  And Buzz Aldrin took them with him out of the Earth's orbit and on to the surface of the moon.

He and Armstrong had only been on the lunar surface for a few minutes when Aldrin made the following public statement:

    "This is the LM pilot.  I'd like to take this opportunity to ask every person listening in, whoever and wherever they may be, to pause for a moment and contemplate the events of the past few hours and to give thanks in his or her own way."  He then ended radio communication and there, on the silent surface of the moon, 250,000 miles from home, he read a verse from the Gospel of John, and he took communion.  Here is his own account of what happened:

    "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."  And of course, it's interesting to think that some of the first words spoken on the moon were the words of Jesus Christ, who made the Earth and the moon - and Who, in the immortal words of Dante, is Himself the "Love that moves the Sun and other stars."

The Red Tent, The Red Scooter and Uber Rich

Jesus - and Joann- surprised me Friday night.

“How was the Uber ride?“ she asked.

I had forgotten.

When we were packing up after last week’s Red Tent class, I had announced, “Feel free to pray for my Uber ride back from Kessler (West Orange) this afternoon.“

I live with PTSD, and a few Uber rides have triggered me in the past, leaving me sleepless and pumped with unwanted chemicals for several days.

After my husband dropped me off at Kessler an hour and a half later, it was a love feast. Kessler is my second home, I lived four of the eight months of my hospitalization there and served as a volunteer for four years afterwards.

So yes, all that love was exhilarating.

Then I went into my wheelchair clinic appointment, which I had waited for for one full year – the outpatient waiting time with the best wheelchair fitters in the business. 

Rather than risk another fall, I decided to stay local and gatherings outside of church and hospitals - theater, conferences - were out of the question. But then yours truly decided to go to a NJ Baroque Orchestra concert last month.

Wrong move.

By intermission my body was pulsing with pain that the music couldn’t even sooth. We made our way out to the hallway and stayed there for the rest of the performance.

And two weeks later I fell in a church hall from a loud noise and my startle reflex.

And then at the end of our Bible study two weeks ago, the phone call came. It was Kessler, “Do you still want to come in to the wheelchair clinic?“

“Yes!”

So my husband dropped me off at Kessler. Since he was working till 10 PM and going to be in three different locations, a ride home was not possible.

Enter Uber and an extravagant cost.

At the wheelchair clinic they wanted me to try some “portable” power chairs – but at the tune of 50+ pounds unless whoever was going to drive me was CrossFit, that wasn’t going to happen.

“A scooter,“ one of the therapy team suggested, “let’s try a scooter.“

Note, my dear friend CarolAnn has suggested a scooter last summer. No, not on your life was my immediate hidden response.

Out came the scooter, a bright red scooter. Syndi showed me how to transfer, and I found only a slight touch of my thumbs would steer it.

One ride through the lobby, faster than I had I’ve ever been able to walk since my spinal cord injury, and released from gauging 600 environmental obstacles with every step I took, I was cruising.

I was free.

My mind was made up. The staff pointed out that I would have a front pole in front of me as an obstacle – indeed that was not a deterrent - it made me ecstatic! Something to keep me a bit more safe from lumbering bodies, knocking into me. A little bit of a placebo PTSD buffer!

Immediately after our meeting I got a text. My husband had had an inspiration on how to handle one of the meetings that night, and needed to drive back to Long Valley to get something for it. Did I want a ride? He was already out in the parking lot. When I opened the truck door he said, “Uber Rich here!”

So when I asked you ladies to pray for my Uber ride, God certainly heard you and threw every thing else in the package.

When I go out speaking for Him, I can navigate crowds in my bright red scooter! So thank you Red Tent sisters for your prayers – and thank you Joann for sparking my memory. 

So the red tent sisters, the red scooter, and Uber Rich lived happily ever after.

Maryann P. Hobbie

5 February 2020