Thoughts at the start of 2026

Earth from Apollo 11, July 1969. NASA photo.

My dear Friends,

I do hope that you had an enjoyable time over recent weeks and that you feel refreshed in your relationships with those who sustain and support you. I also hope that there has been a relief from the usual patterns and a chance to do new things.

One of the things I was able to do when all the Christmas services were finally over, was to watch some television. Not that I found much I wanted to see on the usual channels but a film I did switch over to was one which I had seen years ago and one which I remembered for one stunning scene which has stayed with me in my mind ever since.

The film was Apollo 13. You may have seen it too. Tom Hanks and two colleagues are tasked with embarking upon a lunar mission which went wrong, this being based on a real life story from 1970. They were eventually forced to abandon their moon landing after an oxygen tank explodes, threatening their lives and crippling their spacecraft. NASA is forced to improvise a daring rescue to bring them safely back to earth. It is a gripping tale where the relationships between the characters, in the context of such a potential disaster, are fascinating. 

However, it wasn`t the drama of the situation which was the reason I rewatched the film, it was because I remembered one scene which had moved me to the point of my forgetting to breathe as I watched: it lasted for only around 3 second, by I can see it now, shimmering in my memory and imagination. It was the moment when the Tom Hanks character sees from the space craft, not the surface of the moon but rather the surface of the earth spinning below them. Verdant greens, cleansing blues, all bathed in brilliant glowing light, looking absolutely perfect, magnificent, complete, harmonious, whole.

It made me remember where I was following the television broadcast in 1969 when, as a 7 year old child, I had just been informed that a human being was at that very moment walking on the surface of the moon. I walked out into the garden, it was late evening, and I gazed at the moon in the night sky in a moment which stretched my mind and stimulated my imagination.

Here I was, some years later, presented with an image of the earth from space, appearing to be the most beautiful and radiant place of peace, harmony and wholeness, silently spinning, creating awe and wonder in anyone who saw it.

It isn't how we normally think of the world is it, as we see it from the ground, from the perspective of our lives, situations and what we see on our television screens in the news broadcasts. There we see the world primarily through the prism of political tensions, social divisions, the aggression of war, the greed and corruption of some world leaders, the perversity of polarisation and human pain. From space we see our planet as a whole, as a harmonious entity. From the ground we see only discord and dispute, destruction and demoralisation.

Of course, both images are true. Both are real. From space we are indeed a spinning globe, perfect and complete, with swirling bands of emerald green and cerulean blue, a halo, a nimbus of shimmering light glowing over its surface. But we are also a warring, worried world, of people vying with one another for positions of power, a disharmony of a humanity, disfiguring society.

And there is it you and I are called to pray, in the midst, in the creative tension of those two realities: the image of a perfect and complete, harmonious and united creation and the experience of so many in this world, of persecution and pain, injustice and intolerance, hunger and fear.

And we must also recall and draw strength from other experiences of being human: the ability to feel love, compassion and empathy, the spirit of adventure and achievement in the arts and sciences which enrich and extend people`s lives, those things which fill us with tenderness and gratitude for the gift of being alive, for those moments of enlightenment when we sense the presence of our Creator reassuring us that He is there.

In this coming new year, which has begun with many things which may have alarmed us and given us cause for concern, let us draw strength from the promise we celebrated at Christmas, that Christ is Emmanuel, "God with us" who will never abandon us, but is always there beside us.

And let us more faithfully, consciously and committedly join in His prayer for the world as He speaks to His Father, "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven."

With blessings and best wishes

Jeff