Watching the SpaceX rockets returning to earth vertically, accurately, and so gently into the arms of their launch tower is like witnessing a science fiction dream come true. I think I was about five years old when I decided, “I want to be an astronaut when I grow up.”
Within a few years and the first Moon landing, that desire had solidified. There was nothing I wanted more. My walls were covered with NASA photos. My shelves were filled with books about space travel. In my mind, I saw the world through a space suit helmet’s visor. My heart thrilled at the thought of riding that pillar of fire and smoke to other worlds and to come back to tell about it.
Like the pillar of smoke that chases the rocket into space, my dreams of being an astronaut faded into the blue sky so gradually that I can’t tell you when it was finally gone. The fire turned to mist, the passion cooled to indecision, the sureness dissipated into uncertainty. In my surest moments since, there has always been at least a shadow of a doubt, and I recognize it as yet another consequence of original sin. To paraphrase Saint Paul, the confidence I would have, I have not; the doubt I would avoid, I have.
As “grown ups,” our lack of clarity and certainty is what makes the world such a cloudy, unpredictable place. A place of the uncertain speech of diplomacy.
Clarity is a thing for the very young.
For children, every day is cloudless, everything is possible. Doubt has no place in the child’s heart. And, inasmuch as we return to childhood when we grow old, clarity is also for the aged and wise. Every day is valued, what will be will be. True words are a trumpet blast, and doubt itself fades from a crippling whisper to an inconsequential breeze.
Like everyone, as I have gotten older my body has given me even less reason to be confident.
Circumstance and experience teach that one of the few things that is certain is uncertainty itself. But these lessons are to be a blessing since, having more reason to doubt what we can do, we may turn to the grace that allows us to see what God can do, and wants to do, and will do, even with us.
And what is that? It is certainly not a thing He hides. In scripture, it is in the beginning, in the law, in the psalms and stories. It is in Jesus’ first words, “Repent, and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15) and in his last words, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” and in every word in between.
It’s in the Church’s liturgy, which doesn’t tell us what to do, but what we should be, and names example after example. It is in our history, in the life of the Church shown in the lives of the saints. And when the day comes that we stop doubting, we follow the pillar of fire and smoke to the heavens through a wilderness of sky.
When we put aside the fear of becoming what we are to be, we break through the clouds and return home to tell the tale, with all the confidence of prophets and sages, and all the certainty of children of the heavenly Father. Because one day we had decided, “When I grow up I want to be a saint.”
https://www.space.com/spacex-starship-flight-5-launch-super-heavy-booster-catch-success-video
