Souls on Spaceship Earth

Let’s consider the obvious within the sublime. Spaceship Earth, hanging in the universe, a miracle marvel of human space travel. Modern space telescopes such as NASA’s newest space telescope, SPHEREx, launched on March 11, 2025, is enabling scientists to map the entire sky, creating an unprecedented 3D map of more than 450 million galaxies and 100 million stars within our Milky Way. So you think you’re a big deal? Well, you are!

What? Almost 500 million galaxies that they can now see? How many more are there? What on earth are we doing here, floating around deep space constantly moving over 50,000 miles per hour around the sun? Mercury is moving at over 100,000 miles per hour! That’s over 1,500 miles per minute and almost 30 miles per second. Think of it.

Yet, there’s more to this story. For you geeks out there, earth is moving at over 1,304 miles per second around the Milky Way galaxy, and the Milky Way is moving through space at almost 350 miles per second. The combined total speed of spaceship earth in the universe is about 22,000 miles per second. Did you know that? You are moving that fast right now. Here’s the proof from NASA .

Furthermore, consider that the earth is spinning in space and you are actually flying around in a circle, do you ever think about this, that you are passing the exact same spot on earth every 24 hours? And so is everyone else living along that same circular line on earth. For instance, if you could hang still and allow the earth to turn below your feet, it would pass beneath you at somewhere between 800 miles per hour to 1,000 and you would see everything and everyone that lives on the exact same latitude as you. But that would mostly be water in the ocean. Amazing, isn’t it?

Do you realize that the sunrise and sunset you enjoy actually stays in the same place? We just ride through what’s called the line of termination where sunlight meets the earth’s shadow. It’s always in the same spot around the earth and facing the sun. That means there is a constant sunrise/sunset donut around the earth in a complete circle all the time in the same place and we just ride through it each dawn and dusk. The pink glow is highlighted by high clouds. Yes, even the clouds are going a thousand miles an hour around the earth.

And the earth is crowned both on the top and bottom by the Aurora Borealis on top of the earth and Aurora Australis over Antarctica. These are there 24 hours a day every day but are visible to the naked eye adorning the night and becoming more acute during intense solar emissions.

Our earth has several mechanisms to keep us safe without a metal wall like within a rocket. Earth’s atmosphere and the magnetosphere, protect us from subatomic particles and UV (ultraviolet) radiation that would otherwise make life cease to exist. But the sun gives us energy to enable life. Without it, we would soon die. The sun also blasts a shield into outer space to block high-energy galactic cosmic rays that could harm us. Earth is an amazing spaceship created by God.

Think of it. It hangs in space upon nothing. Although we are well aware of its effects, scientists don’t really know what gravity is exactly. But it works to hold us on the ground and hold the earth in orbit around the sun. Thank God it doesn’t suddenly turn off.

Do you ever realize that up is not up at all. Airplanes flying on the other side of the world right now are actually flying upside down. If you could zoom through earth instantaneously, you’d be amazed that everyone is sitting in their airplane seats but upside down. More amazing, if they could see you, you’d be upside down to them. What an interesting planet we live on.

Rainbows aren’t what they seem. They are actually complete circles partially blocked by the earth. Water droplets reflect sunlight in combination and filter and disperse it into its radiant array of the full color spectrum. There is light at the end of the visible colors in the infrared (experienced as heat), ultraviolet, X-ray, Gamma ray, Radio waves (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, television, radar) and Microwaves we can’t see, but exist. The same way, God exists but can’t actually see Him with our earthly eyes.

As a child, I remember sailing in the captain’s helm on a ferry going across Puget Sound in Washington state. I asked if the captain could turn the ship to find the gold at the bottom of one side of the rainbow. When the ship turned, the rainbow moved. The captain explained that it was an optical illusion since the reflected angle of the light from the sun depends on our point of view. From our point of view, we think God is just an illusion, but He’s real. When the ship moved to the right or left, the reflection in relation to the sun above also moved with us. That’s why you can’t find that illusive gold, lol.

I discovered that a rainbow is completely round when I sprayed water as a fine mist from my garden hose. It glistened rainbow colors that look like a round circle of light. This really hit home when I saw a rainbow from my airplane window at a very high altitude. To my amazement, it was a complete circle, not cut off by the ground. That makes sense because the light was on all sides of the plane. We were surrounded by light and the raindrops revealed that to me. My prayer is that these heavenly truths about our place on our planet might reveal some unseen truths to you.

What inspired me to write this article was a photo I took of the full solar eclipse recently. I mean, it’s a miracle that the earth and sun can appear to be the same size from earth. During a recent solar eclipse, our family traveled from California to Ohio to view it directly. If the moon were actually on earth, we were right in the very middle as it passed overhead. You can see the video of our trip “Three Thousand Dollars for Three Minutes” on Youtube.

We also traveled to the middle of nowhere at the intersection of the borders of Oregon, Idaho and Nevada to see a solar eclipse. In this instance, the moon was a bit further away from earth in its orbit, appearing a tiny bit smaller than the sun itself. In that case, the sky didn’t turn completely black, it just looked like dusk when things get dark in the evening when the earth transitions into the earth’s shadow for the night. But that was truly spectacular as a bright red hot “Ring of Fire” (click the link) flashed around the edge of the moon. 

But seeing the full solar eclipse in Ohio was totally worth all the effort. Honestly, it was the most spectacular thing I had ever seen when suddenly that amazing white light corona of the sun appears. People screamed. We heard them from what seem like miles away. It was just awe-inspiring and probably the most pure heavenly white light against a black space background you could ever imagine. Honestly, it was shocking how beautiful it was. That looked like a little snapshot of the glory of God, a heavenly light, so pure and white and surreally glorious. I’m including a photo I took – here below on this page.

Consider this, even more incredible than spaceship earth is your personal space suit. Like the three parts of an egg, as an example, we have an outer shell, our bodies, and two inner parts you can’t see. There is our spirit, that’s what folks interact with, and within that, lies our true selves, our soul. That’s like the inside of the egg.

For Easter this year, I decided to get creative and make Easter deviled eggs. I carefully boiled them, peeled them, cut them in half long ways, then popped out the yellow yokes into a bowl. I mixed them with some mayo and mustard and carefully put them into batches, adding food coloring. Then scooped them back into the gel-like egg white half. The pastel colors looked very “Eastery.”

God gives us a beautiful outer shell, wraps our spirit and soul with protection and sustenance as we visit this planet and explore. We learn to talk, read, write, do math, and participate in life. The earth is a stage and we are the actors. God set the stage and we are placed into our bodies to navigate His wonderful creation, earth.

This is the Christo-centric view of life. The Bible says in Genesis 1:3, “Let there be light,” that God spoke the universe into existence. Most don’t know this fact, but in the Book of Colossians it clearly says that Jesus, the second person of the trinity, was the one who did this. He spoke the world into being. Colossians 1:16 states that all things were created by Him. The verse goes on to say that these things include those in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities. All things have been created through Him and for Him.

We know it was the pre-incarnate (before being born on earth) Jesus who actually did the work of creation because in the verses just prior to verse 16 it says, [God] “who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son (Jesus): In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins: Who (Jesus) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: (verse 16) For by him (Jesus) were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible.”

That means that God loves us so much that He gave us a wonderful home in the universe and a fabulous body to house our essence as we travel through space. So is there a purpose to all this? Why would the God of the Universe, amidst 30 to 70 billion trillion stars of trillions of galaxies care about one small rock and one tiny soul in a body?

It has to do with that word found in Colossians chapter one above: the word “Redemption.” The purpose of all of this, all of this marvelous creation is simply this, the good news of redemption. We call that the “Gospel.” Allow me to elaborate.

God made us. We belong to Him. We disobey. We become unworthy to be with Him in heaven. He sends someone to take our punishment. Those who repent and turn to the Savior for healing will be regenerated, much like a caterpillar turning into a beautiful butterfly. Regeneration means rebirth. Without being born again, you can’t be saved.

So how does one become born again? The first step is to realize you have broken God’s rules for living. We all have broken one or more of the ten commandments, for example. We are unfit for heaven. We are guilty. What do you do with a broken object? You fix it. God sent His Son to fix our sin problem and mend our broken hearts. Confess (agree with God) your sins to God and ask for His forgiveness. This means acknowledging your wrongdoings and repenting (recognizing) them.

Next, simply invite Jesus into your life (heart, that inner soul) to wash away your sins and forgive you. If you sincerely do that and invite Jesus in, He will come in and live in you through the Holy Spirit. John 1:12 guarantees that “as many as (that would be you, right?) received him, to them (you) gave he power to become the sons of God (a child of God), even to them that believe on his name” (that would be you). Read the full book of John to get the full understanding. Focus on John chapter 3 and see what it says about being born again.

Now wasn’t that great? We took a trip through the Universe to find God. What an amazing Space Ship Earth.