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Apollo 13 is one of my favorite movies. Even though I've seen it multiple times, and I know how both the real story and the movie end, I'm still anxious every time I watch the movie. Will they make it back to earth safely after their spacecraft heading to the moon suffered a major explosion? There is one point in the movie in which it dawns on the experts in Mission Control that when the explosion took place, it may have cracked the heat shield that was designed to protect the capsule from the extreme heat upon reentry into the Earth's atmosphere at a very high speed.
There is a time of radio blackout as they burn their way through the Earth's atmosphere and slow down enough to deploy parachutes in the hope that they can land safely in the ocean. Everyone has to wait and wait and wait to find out if the astronauts have made it safely through the atmosphere. Those few minutes seem like an eternity, but when they finally hear the voice of the astronauts who have come through safely, Mission Control and everyone watching on TV erupt in elation! I get choked up every time I watch that pure joy.
This past Monday night, I shared with our Session that we're finding reentry into our buildings, and everything related to trying to return to a sense of normalcy in the life of the church, is more complex than we thought. Perhaps it's because we've been so focused on simply surviving the pandemic, but now every discussion we have about how to come back and meet together safely involves questions no one had thought about before.
And yet, we had a taste of the pure joy of elation on Easter Sunday when some of us met for worship in the tent on our ballfield. I look forward to when worshiping together becomes the normal practice for most of us. But until then, I appreciate your patience and your prayers for our leadership that continues to seek to do the right thing in the right way for all of our church family.
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