U.S. Navy captain and NASA astronaut James “Jim” Lovell led a life defined by resilience and competence — traits that highlight our species’ immense capacity for endurance. With his passing earlier this month, we must honor the values Capt. Lovell embodied and rise to meet this national moment of fear and confusion.

In 1968, the U.S. faced a social upheaval that rivals the turmoil that has so far defined 2025. Maine Sen. Edmund Muskie ran alongside Hubert Humphrey for the presidency, losing to Richard Nixon by less than 1% of the popular vote. Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. were both assassinated, the Tet Offensive in Vietnam spurred anti-war protests across the country, “Hey Jude” topped the charts and Apollo 8 gently slipped past the surly bonds of Earth into lunar orbit.

On Christmas Eve 1968, after imaging the first “Earthrise,” seeing our vibrant, grassy, watery, pearl of life suspended in an infinite vacuum, the crew proceeded to read from the Book of Genesis.

They opted for a message not of world peace, but of creation, beauty and mystery. Perhaps war, violence and brutality are inextricable from the human condition. We exist not as beings of perfection, but as deeply flawed caretakers of a world that continually reminds us just how inconsequential and impermanent we are.

That’s OK — it means we’re human. And although we humans find ourselves in a moment of crisis, it’s in these moments that our capacity for achieving the extraordinary is discovered.

Godspeed, Jim Lovell.

Jack O’Kelly
Cape Elizabeth