Author: lakewooducc

In Samantha’ Harvey’s novel, Orbital, there is a protocol for those on a spaceship when an astronaut has a medical problem or emergency.  If the astronaut must be evacuated from space, taken home to be treated, the astronaut does not go alone.  Two other astronauts go to accompany the one needing medical attention.  The colleagues are needed to assist with the trip back to Earth and the landing.  The two compatriots are needed to potentially save the life of the astronaut who is physically compromised.

In the course of Harvey’s novel, Anton, a Russian cosmonaut, has discovered a lump on his neck.  He is keeping it hidden beneath the collar of his shirt.  He does not want anyone to know about it:  “Absently Anton runs his fingers over a lump that’s appeared on his neck the last fortnight and that he tries to obscure by raising the collar of his polo shirt.  The last thing you need is to get sick in space.  They’ll worry and send you home and, because you can’t fly back on your own, two others will have to go with you, and to cut short the missions of those two others would be unforgivable.  He’ll say nothing to the flight surgeon or to his fellow crew and he’ll hope nobody notices.  It’s the size of a cherry in the low hollow of his neck, and perfectly painless.” [pp. 139-140]

It seems noble of Anton to be concerned about others.  To not want to cut short the mission of any of the other astronauts who are on the spaceship.  The six astronauts seem so in love with space and have worked for their whole careers for this opportunity.  Of course Anton would not want to take that away from any of them.  He is thinking about others, not just himself.  Not just his health.  You get the feeling Anton would rather die than take away one minute in space for any of his colleagues.  He seems so other-centered.  

Much as Anton loves space and would not want to deprive any one of his comrades of a moment of their mission, I found my self wondering, What if one of the other astronauts on the spaceship was sick and needed to return to Earth to receive healthcare?  I think Anton would be the first to volunteer to help them get back to Earth.  I think he would immediately agree to fly back with the sick colleague.  

And then he would say, “Zabudem, ladno?”  Let’s forget it, shall we?   

Prayer: Jesus teaches us to find life in giving our lives away.  As this Lenten season is drawing to a close, we remember how Jesus gave his life away for others.  May we seek to do the same.  Amen.

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Devotion prepared by Rev. Kim P. Wells, pastor of Lakewood United Church of Christ in St. Petersburg, FL.

The devotions this Lenten season will be based on the novel Orbital by Samantha Harvey.  Orbital won the Booker Prize in 2024.  It is a beautifully written story about the experience of a group of people orbiting the Earth in a spaceship.  They see 16 sunrises and sunsets in a 24 hour period.  The book is a reflection on the experience of living together and appreciating planet Earth in a new way.

First of all, you may want to Google “Las Meninas” and see a picture of the painting by that name by Diego Velazquez.  And maybe you have seen the painting in Museo del Prado in Madrid.  It is very enigmatic.  There are several little girls in the painting.  It’s title is translated “The Ladies in Waiting.”  And there is the painter with his easel painting a picture.  Of the king and queen whose images appear in a mirror.  And there is someone in the background in a doorway.  And some other adults including a dwarf looking on and a dog asleep.  So what is it a painting of?  What is it about?  An artist painting a painting?  The little girls?  The monarchs in the mirror?  Illusion?  Delusion?

This painting was the subject of an art class for Shaun, an American astronaut on the spaceship in Samantha Harvey’s novel, Orbital, when he was 15.  Another student seated near him engaged him about the painting which he cared nothing about.  He wanted to be a fighter pilot.

This other student became his wife.  And sent him a postcard of the painting writing on the back all the issues addressed by the teacher about the painting.  And Shaun brought the postcard with him on the spaceship to remind him of his wife.  

At one point on the voyage, another colleague on the spaceship, Pietro from Italy, asks about the postcard.  After reading the postcard, this scene ensues:  “Pietro stares for a while at the painting, and a while longer, then says, It’s the dog.

“Pardon?

“To answer your wife’s question, the subject of the painting is the dog. . . “

“Now he doesn’t see a painter or princess or dwarf or monarch, he sees a portrait of a dog.  An animal surrounded by the strangeness of humans, all their odd cuffs and ruffles and silks and posturing, the mirrors and angles and viewpoints;  all the ways they’ve tried not to be animals and how comical this is, when he looks at it now.  And how the dog is the only thing in the painting that isn’t slightly laughable or trapped within a matrix of vanities.  The only thing in the painting that could be called vaguely free.”  [pp. 150-160]

To me, this is an aim of our Lenten journey and our life’s journey.  To be free.  Free of the posturing and props and pretenses that obscure our true identity and our freedom.

Prayer:  In these holy days of Lent, may we try to affirm our deep down humanity that is so often hidden behind many veils and pretenses.  And may we also try to see the full humanity of others.  Then we can be free.  Amen.

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Devotion prepared by Rev. Kim P. Wells, pastor of Lakewood United Church of Christ in St. Petersburg, FL.

The devotions this Lenten season will be based on the novel Orbital by Samantha Harvey.  Orbital won the Booker Prize in 2024.  It is a beautifully written story about the experience of a group of people orbiting the Earth in a spaceship.  They see 16 sunrises and sunsets in a 24 hour period.  The book is a reflection on the experience of living together and appreciating planet Earth in a new way.

It is remarkable the knowledge that the human species has been able to acquire.  Considering the time that has elapsed between the inception of Creation, the evolution of homo sapiens sapiens, and the present moment, humanity has progressed at breakneck speed.  And the speed of the acquisition of knowledge is ever increasing.  With the spreading use of Artificial Intelligence, new vistas of knowledge open up.  Advances in science and technology may make it possible for human life to improve for everyone.  

Or maybe not.  With all this knowledge, we still seem beset by problems.  Like delivering healthcare to all.  Being attuned to the heart attack symptoms of women.  Seeing that everyone has a safe, secure place to live.  Making sure all people, including children, especially children, have enough food to eat.  There are many things that seem to be lagging despite our attainment of knowledge.

Addressing some of these situations is not so much a matter of knowledge as a matter of will.  And wisdom.  When we choose to take care of everyone, we avert many other problems.  We don’t seem to have learned that yet.  It is wisdom that eludes our species as a whole.

Shaun, an American astronaut on the spaceship in Samantha Harvey’s novel, Orbital, has a prayerful moment.  Harvey relates:  “With his eyes closed he can hear that gibbon call, hollow and echoing. . . . Imagines placing his hand on the warm neck of a horse and can feel the smooth, oily lie of its coat, though he’s barely touched a horse in his life.  The dart of a jay between the trees in his backyard.  The dash of a spider into cover.  The shadow of a pike beneath the water.  A shrew carrying her young in her mouth.  A hare leaping higher than seems warranted.  A scarab beetle navigating by the stars.  

“Pick a single creature on this earth and its story will be the earth’s story, he suddenly thinks.  It can tell you everything, that one creature.  The whole history of the world, the whole likely future of the world.”  [pp. 162-163]

I am not sure we can say that about the human creature.  The human creature seems to be the creature most capable of deception, ignorance, bias, and greed.  I’m not sure there is even one human creature alive today that can tell Earth’s story.  Let alone the story of Earth’s future.   

Prayer: We hold Earth’s story deep in our bones, in our sinews and synapses.  May we listen to that story and appreciate it’s wisdom so that we may create a new future not just for humanity but for Earth and the cosmos.  Amen.

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Devotion prepared by Rev. Kim P. Wells, pastor of Lakewood United Church of Christ in St. Petersburg, FL.

The devotions this Lenten season will be based on the novel Orbital by Samantha Harvey.  Orbital won the Booker Prize in 2024.  It is a beautifully written story about the experience of a group of people orbiting the Earth in a spaceship.  They see 16 sunrises and sunsets in a 24 hour period.  The book is a reflection on the experience of living together and appreciating planet Earth in a new way.

While orbiting Earth in a spaceship with 5 others, Chie, an astronaut from Japan, learns that her mother has died.  In the course of the novel, Orbital, Samantha Harvey recounts Chie’s experience of grief in the small spaceship, many miles and many months away from the rituals that surround such a painful passing.  Among the astronauts, Chie talks about her mother.  She cries and the tears have to be gathered for they float off in the zero gravity conditions and can cause technical problems.  With no loved one to hold, she holds herself.  But she cannot be part of the funeral or the rituals of remembering her mother’s life.  She thinks about which bone she would choose at the bone picking ceremony after the cremation.  

Chie is fulfilling her life long dream, her ambition, the culmination of her hard work and preparation, by being in space, and yet she wants to be on Earth.  With her mother.  Chie’s days in the spaceship are highly scheduled, every waking moment programmed, and yet grief creeps in.  Finds a way.  This is human.  To suffer loss.  Especially of someone as significant as a mother.  

In these somber days of Lent, dare we allow our grief to creep into our reality?  What grief are we holding?  The death of a loved one, still cherished and missed?  The death of Jesus which we will commemorate on Good Friday?  The death of values that were once held dear?  The ending of a relationship?  Do we hold grief over the pain experienced by our beloved planet, Earth?  

To allow our hearts to be heavy is to be fully human.

Prayer:  The days of our lives are filled with attachments partly made beautiful by their fragility and finitude.  May we create space for grief which lets in all the beauty of that which is no longer present to us.  Amen.

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Devotion prepared by Rev. Kim P. Wells, pastor of Lakewood United Church of Christ in St. Petersburg, FL

The devotions this Lenten season will be based on the novel Orbital by Samantha Harvey.  Orbital won the Booker Prize in 2024.  It is a beautifully written story about the experience of a group of people orbiting the Earth in a spaceship.  They see 16 sunrises and sunsets in a 24 hour period.  The book is a reflection on the experience of living together and appreciating planet Earth in a new way.