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A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Rev Richard Littledale

Good morning.

Thirty years ago today, Helen Sharman became the first British astronaut in space. She had been a research chemist, working on ice cream for a confectionery company when she heard an advert on the car radio for: astronauts- no experienced required. Selected from some 13,000 applicants, she underwent years of training and blasted off from Kazakhstan on May 18th 1991 to join the Mir space station. During her eight days in space, she conducted numerous experiments, and is now an enthusiastic advocate for science and exploration in many guises.

It was only whilst researching her story that I came across the translation of the word ‘astronaut’. It means, literally, ‘star sailor’. The phrase seems unexpectedly poetic for something involving so much technology and engineering. Oddly, space technology and poetry often seem to go hand in hand. When Perseverance landed on Mars recently, the Acting Director of NASA described it as personifying the human ideal of persevering toward the future. Maybe there is something about the stars and the planets which brings out the poet in all of us.

Looking up at those same stars King David wrote
When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them?

What, indeed. Whether we contemplate the stars from afar or up close and personal like the star sailors – they inspire us.

Dear God, today we thank you for the skies above us and the stars which light them. Keep our sense of wonder today, we pray.

Amen.