A collection of thoughts over the first fortnight of April 2026 - John Bazalgette
As the story of Holy Week and Easter approached, I found myself thinking “Who am I? where am I, and what am I for?”
From 1 April, reports and pictures from the Artemis II journey to the far side of the moon were unfolding. At the back of my mind was the myth of Creation as the starting point of the story of humankind’s learning to belong. So, I began at the very beginning.
In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth a formless void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.
The photos from Artemis II struck me as a telling real-life representation of those words.
From this distance of 252,756 miles from Earth this could be God’s perspective. Genesis describes how God’s next step is to make distinctions and draw boundaries: Sky from waters, Earth from Seas; Earth from vegetation; Sun from Moon; bringing forth living creatures …. blessing them as he creates them. Then he brings forth cattle and creeping things and wild things of every kind. In verse 25 He saw that it was good’.
In the next verses He takes the a daring step. Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air… and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. Then He repeats himself. So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
In verse 28 He takes the next, most daring step of all as he sets out the work He expects humankind to do for Him. God blessed them, and said to them ‘be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.’
In verse 31 He shows confidence in what he has done:
God saw everything that he had made, and indeed it was very good.
Thinking about the 2026 images from Space
Humankind’s first venture into space was Sputnik – the size of a beach ball - and launched by Russia in 1957, 69 years before Artemis II set out on her journey. To do what she was intended to do, an incalculable amount of work had been done by an incalculable number of people. This was work done by men and women from diverse disciplines, backgrounds, nationalities and cultures. Altogether costing untold millions of Rubles, Pounds and Dollars, it has also cost over 30 lives of those involved in space exploration.
As I thought about that diversity, I noticed that the Artemis team of four were themselves a microcosm of the story they embody. The Houston Chronicle listed details: male-female; nationalities (American and Canadian); ethnicity; disciplines – computer science/engineering/operational art; cultures (Christian/agnostic). An interesting detail from the Chronicle is what each of them chose to take with them: the Bible; family heirlooms; blank paper and pencil; notes from their family; moon pendants to give their family on return.
What was happening on Earth over the same time?
Meanwhile on Earth the work that God has given mankind to do can hardly be called ‘very good’!
All across the globe, small and large conflicts are going on, as they have been since World War II. The United Nations and its international agencies, intended to bring peace and wellbeing to the world, have vainly tried to make a difference in many places. This has especially led to the current turbulence in the Middle East Following the revolution in Iran in 1979 a series of conflicts around the Middle East had rumbled on without attracting much international attention. However, from 2025 the world news has focused first on the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, until the hostilities following the Hamas attack on Israel in 2023 aroused the greater interest of the United States, especially in relation to Iran’s nuclear capability. At that point the USA began its efforts to destroy that capability, which has led to a series of fragile attempts from April 2025 try to establish peace: these continue as I write in mid-April 2026.
Managing Humankind’s venture into Space
The astronauts thoughts about the view of Earth from Artemis II were summed up: “Just having humanity stop for a moment and say, ‘Wow, look at what we can do when we work together…Let’s just set goals to do a better job of that on this planet today.” The way they use the word ‘we’ is important: they refer to the whole of humankind, not just themselves. That’s probably as good a description as we need here about what was needed to bring about this miraculous human achievement.
Managing Humankind’s divine task to ‘be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it.’
During the days at the beginning of April, that sense of working together to bring peace to the Middle East, led by the President of the United States and others, has been absent. The rest of the world, whose own peace is inevitably involved, has been kept on edge.
Who is talking to whom and about what is unclear. Who has what authority and from whom? What is being talked about? How was the ‘peace agenda’ defined and where are details set out? What time scale is there – if any? Frustrated by the slowness that genuine negotiation demands, the President declares he will bomb Iran back to the stone age if agreement is not settled in 48 hours. An unrealistic 24 hours ‘pause in hostilities’ is declared, combined with declarations that the US has ‘won the war’, though full agreement will be withheld for a fortnight. Iran declares that the ‘agreement’ is evidence of their victory. A cease fire is agreed while peace ‘details are worked out’ in meetings hosted by Pakistan. Representatives of some of the involved nations meet for 21 hours in Pakistan. The USA sends the Vice President plus a team of 300 negotiators, who are met by the Speaker of the Iranian parliament plus 70 of his colleagues. Discussions included claim and counterclaim about ‘ownership ‘ of the Strait of Hormuz. Meanwhile Israel continues bombing Beirut since they feel they were not included in the cease fire agreement: 300 people were killed, un-numbered civilian casualties have been reported along with the destruction of major parts of central Beirut. Pakistan declares that Israel’s part in the process was included in the negotiations and that the cease fire was meant to include them.
In such disordered circumstances normal human failings such as fear of being ‘found out’ and the sense of losing personal reputation take over. On all sides feelings about personal loss of control become irresistible and begin to become central, while what is required for systemic thinking and shared decision-making gets ignored.
To return to my original questions and adapt them in the light of my April thoughts. I now want to write “Who are we? where are we, and what are we for?” The world as a whole is confronted by the fact that humankind has massive lessons to learn about belonging together as small accountable parts of the world as a whole. But Artemis II gives evidence that we can use the capabilities which God has gifted us with for our divine task - when we have the shared view of benefiting the whole world.
Our local pharmacy is owned by a Hindu sect. They employ a diverse staff. For a long time, they had a notice to their employees on the wall. TEAM – Together Everyone Achieves More! It’s easy to put the intention in four words but so much harder to do!