Young Richard, just 12 years old, sat close in front of the family’s new television, transfixed at the flickering picture. It was May 5, 1961. Not all of his friends’ families owned televisions, so several of his friends and his little brother sat on the floor with him. They weren’t fascinated by the television set, even though it was a relatively young technology. They were engrossed with the image of a very large missile sitting on a launch pad in faraway Florida. A voice was counting time down and when the voice reached zero, the giant rocket ignited and the rocket began a slow, thunderous rise. In a tiny capsule perched on the top of the rocket sat Alan Shepard. It was a brief flight, actually just 15 minutes, but with that flight, Shepard became the first American to reach space and the first person ever to actually control his space craft. Richard knew immediately that one day he would fly to the stars.

          Even though he had this vivid dream, he was also a kid. Two years later he went with a friend and his family to an amusement park less than an hour away. Conneaut Lake Park in the north-western corner of Pennsylvania. There were a lot of things to do there, but the big attraction was a wooden rollercoaster. By our standards now, it wasn’t much of anything. But in 1963, it was legendary. Richard was excited! To him, it would be a close approximation to a rocket blast off. He and his friend went to the coaster first thing. They boarded fearlessly. (I actually road the thing 30 years later as an adult. I was terrified. Last coaster I would ever ride.) It took off slow but gained speed. Like all the wooden coasters, the thing vibrated and trembled and shook and jerked and moaned. When it was over, Richard’s friend ran off to ride other rides, but Richard got back into line and rode the coaster again and again.

          In 1967 Richard graduated high school. The dream of rocketing to the heavens was still hot in his mind, but reality said that he needed to do college and be an officer in the military. At the time, all astronauts were officers with college. His plan was to go to college and then join the military, preferably the Navy like his hero, Alan Shepard. But college was the problem. The money wasn’t there from his parents for college and he felt that if he worked his way through he wouldn’t be able to pull the grades needed to get into the astronaut program. So, he went to his local recruiting station (Army) to see what his options were. The recruiter told him the thing to do was join the Army, do his hitch and when he got out, go to college on the GI Bill. Then, he could transfer to the Navy, go through officer school and be on his way. Richard was convinced. He became a recruit.

          For some reason, he never considered the idea he might wind up in Vietnam. But, after Basic Training, he received orders to that war-torn country. Still, he was confident. He had made many friends in basic and a number of them were going to Vietnam as well. He could trust his buddies.

          So, Richard went and fought. He often thought of it as a strange, alien world. Strange and large insects, snakes, weird night sounds. One day, as they trooped along a trail near a wide and deep river, one of his buddies swore softly and said, “Dickie, look at that!” Richard followed the pointing finger and saw a huge fish, he estimated 5 feet long in a letter home, drifting in the river, looking like it was dying. What was amazing was that it was obviously a catfish. Nothing like that in the creeks back in Pennsylvania! It was a strange and alien world.

          The day was coming when Richard would be going home. Well, not really home. Back to a base in the United States. But anywhere out of Vietnam sounded like home to him. His squad was making one last tramp through the jungle in an area that was supposed to be clear of any Viet Cong, when a fire fight broke out. It wasn’t a huge fire fight, nor a very long one, but suddenly Richard spun around and hit the ground. He lay there for a bit as the fighting died away, oddly unable to move much. That seemed really weird, until the pain started. By the time a medic got to him the pain seemed to be all through him. Some morphine and he was being carried away.

          That ended his military career. The bullet had passed through his shoulder, wrecking the clavicle. He was never able to lift his left arm very high after that, so his usefulness to the military was no longer there. With that went the dream of space travel. The disappointment was made worse by the fact that the bullet that hit him was fired from behind him, so it was friendly fire, fired by one of his buddies who reacted badly to the suddenness of the fight.

          But, he still had the GI Bill. When he got home, with a medical discharge, he went to school. He still wanted to be involved in some way with the space program, so he went heavy with science courses. However, war and his devastating injury and his overwhelming disappointment played havoc on his ability to concentrate. One of his professors felt he needed a tutor to help him until he settled down and the person he approached was an attractive young lady, a year older than Richard, who was in her senior year preparing to teach high school science and needed the two extra credits tutoring would give her. As they say, one thing led to another and the two were married two years later.

          Richard did settle down with Janice’s help. He was actually quite brilliant. With the GI Bill and Janice’s teaching, he was able to pour himself into his studies. He eventually achieved a doctorate in theoretical physics. He and Jan had three kids. Richard got on with NASA and they wound up living the dream in Houston, Texas. Other than the shoulder problem, Richard had no physical issues. Jan had a brush with cancer, but it was just a brush and she recovered and became a survivor. The children were strong and healthy kids and became strong and healthy, and smart, adults. Some years ago, Richard retired, his only regret being that he never flew.

          For his retirement, Richard’s only sibling, his brother Stewart, and his wife, Christine, flew down to Houston. Stew had gone a different path. A year and a half younger than Richard, he had idolized his big brother. When Richard had sat there in 1961 watching Alan Shepard rise into space, Stew had sat next to him. They got to play on the same Little League team and eventually played a year together in football and baseball in high school. Stew had gone to Vietnam, too, but he had been drafted. He had talked to his mother just before deployment and had heard that his brother had been wounded. Vietnam had a different effect on the brothers, though. While Richard was even more driven to reach out to the stars, Stew was driven towards God. While Richard served the sciences, Stew came back and choose to serve the Lord. Still, even separated by miles and ideology, the brothers remained very close.

          The morning after the retirement party, the two brothers sat in a small restaurant having coffee and something that vaguely resembled pancakes. As they chatted, Stew brought up a subject he had talked about with Richard before. He asked his older brother if he was ready to accept Christ as Savior. Richard put down his fork, took another sip of the coffee, and said, “Stewie, I am not like you. I am a man of science. I only believe in what the five senses tell me. If I can’t see it, feel it, taste it, hear it or smell it, I don’t believe it exists.” He smiled the older brother smile that said he had won the argument. But Stew looked his brother in the eye and said quietly, “Then your whole life is a lie. You were certain that the old coaster at Conneaut would be like a rocket ride without ever seeing it. You were sure that your buddies would protect you in Nam without thinking one would break in that shootout. You say you love Janice and your kids, but love is an emotion that you can’t see or touch or taste or hear or smell. You are a theoretical physicist, your job was to go after theories that have no connection to our understanding of the world. You have reacted on faith your entire life, yet here, now, you say that you have no faith.”

               Hebrews 11:1-3---Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for. By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

          Even Christians can get to where faith is no longer guiding their lives. We conduct our personal, family and church lives as though it all has to make sense to us personally. But it made no sense whatsoever for Christ to sacrifice Himself on Calvary for us and it makes no sense whatsoever for us to demand proof for our faith when we require no proof for so many decisions we make in life. Let’s all start walking by the faith we speak of instead of just talking about it.