Ground Control to Major Tom 5-30-26

I realize logging in that I haven't blogged in over a month! To be sure, I've WRITTEN a LOT while I've been on vacation the month of May and it's been quite an adventure in more ways than one! which kind of made this morning's "musings" all the more strange, because it didn't "fit" with the way my mornings usually go - but maybe that's the point. or at least part of it. Then I tried to upload it and I got an error message that "something went wrong" - of course it did. so, "pressing on toward the mark of the high calling..." here we go:

It’s a strange feeling when I slowly come awake after a weird, restless night’s sleep and instead of the praise song that’s usually drifting through my head comes partial lyrics of David Bowie’s song “Space Oddity” where a conversation between an astronaut named Major Tom and Ground Control are floating around... Although it seems eerie at first, (“...can you hear me Major Tom? Can you hear me Major Tom?...” I have absolutely come to know that God can and does use literally everything to teach me whatever He’s trying to have me understand today.

I grab my laptop and look up the lyrics. Several days ago, while in the car with my husband, that song came on the radio and I asked him what it meant. He said that when he stepped out of the “tin can” (presumably part of the mission), he started drifting, not just losing communication with “Ground Control” but also physical connection with the space ship. I had heard the song multiple times before, not really paying attention and, evidently colored by my preference for smooth sailing and happy endings, I thought he was just lost in thought about how different the stars looked and how blue the earth looked from up in space. The sudden realization that he was floating, untethered from the ship and was saying ‘goodbye’ to his wife with ground control not being able to hear him anymore and him resigned to the fact that he was going to die floating in space, but that his “space ship knows what to do” put an instant lump in my throat – like it’s doing again while I’m typing this. Wow! God, what in the world?! This is going to be a doozy!

I go over the lyrics again. How did I miss this all these years? My perception for so many years that everything was fine and he was just “lost in thought”… a different meaning for these words today begins to emerge. There are times when that’s how we describe times that we are day dreaming or letting our thoughts just wander…

Thoughts pop into my mind of movies like “The Matrix” and “Oblivion” where things are intentionally distorted and twisted to make those stuck inside it think that the deception is actually “reality” – and then we find out differently. Do we find out soon enough? What happens to the people who don’t find out in time?

My thoughts drift again to a local priest I know named Father Tito. He is one of the kindest, gentlest men I know. I’ve been to weddings and funerals where he has officiated and one of his stories pops into my head where God is walking with someone and one day, instead of returning to his (or her) own home at the end of the walk, the person gets tired and tells God how weary they feel and God tells them, “That’s okay, we’re closer to My house than yours anyway, let’s just go to Mine.” It’s comforting for those who are tired to know and to hear that reassurance… but what about those left behind? Those who see their departure as the end and not the beginning of the next part of the journey, the part with "no more tears and no more sorrow or pain"?

More thoughts pop into my head along with a question. If this earth-time is the deception, the mirage that is “here today and gone tomorrow”, what are we seeing with physical eyes that blinds us to the true reality behind the scenes? Like “The Wizard of Oz” and the Wizard who isn’t really a wizard at all, pulling levers and blowing smoke to look impressive, to fear us into submission and distance when we’ve “always had the ability to go home”?

And then “Get Smart” pops into my head (God, where ARE You going with this?). Maxwell Smart is always bumbling his way through the craziest of predicaments. The “good guys” are CONTROL and the “bad guys” are KAOS (chaos). The irony is that KAOS is always trying to gain control of the world and CONTROL’s job is to stop them from succeeding. Irony – and reality.

Jesus said, “Whoever saves his life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for My sake and the sake of the gospel will find it.” True life is found in dying to yourself, to your own will and desires, and allowing God to give you the desires of His heart. The ultimate irony? The blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk, the dead rise,...everything that is broken is made whole. And yet, we fight for control.

After telling us not to “let our hearts be troubles”, to “believe in Him”, that He’s “going to prepare a place for us” so that we “can be where He is” and promising He “will not leave us as orphans” in John chapter 14, Jesus tells us about the Holy Spirit and everything He will do for us, in us, through us and says He will be with us after Jesus goes to heaven to do all this and tells us He, the Son of God Himself does “exactly” “just” and “everything the Father has commanded” Him and says “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”

I needed to hear that today. Again. The lump in my throat with the lyrics of the song, I realize, is not some fictional astronaut’s resignation to his impending accidental space death, but my own struggles with “Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” I am not an orphan. I belong to the One Who really does have complete control. I don’t have to fight the “matrix”, “oblivion”, or “kaos”. “The battle belongs to the Lord.” I have the Peace that passes understanding. I have the mind of Christ. He said so in His Word. So instead of believing the smoke the enemy is blowing, the booming voice of doom and fear trying to convince me that what I see is all there is and I need to jump through the hoops and do all these impossible things to prove I’m worthy of a hot air balloon ride back to Kansas… I can “be still and know…” I have always had the means to get back “home”! Something far more precious than ruby slippers made it possible. Jesus fought chaos and won. He won by losing - for us. His victory became mine – and will become yours – the moment you confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead. The matrix dissolves, the curtain is pulled back, and the unseen reality of God being the Way the Truth and the Life – the real Life – becomes clear.

So we gain the true freedom to live, work, play, serve, enjoy the amazing things we see in this natural world, walking with Him here, talking with Him along the way, and one day, when we’re closer to His house than to ours, we’ll just keep going, “stepping out of this tin can” and walking to the other side of the sunset, realizing the sunset in this world, truly is the Son rise in the next.