Post by Fr David Neuhaus SJ | 10 April 2026
From afar and from up close
I thank my friend and collaborator on this site, Rob Riedlinger for drawing my attention to the following. In an interview from space with CBS News, published on Easter Sunday, the pilot of Artemis II, Victor Glover said: “I think, as we go into Easter Sunday, thinking about all the cultures all around the world, whether you celebrate it or not, whether you believe in God or not, this is an opportunity for us to remember where we are, who we are, and that we are the same thing, and that we’ve gotta get through this together.”
These inspiring words at a time that the world is torn apart by war, violence, devastation and hatred, should awaken us once again to our basic human oneness. This view from afar exhorts us to realize the unity of humanity. The obsessive focus on supposed differences of race, religion, culture, language, and ideology, must be countered by an innate recognition that what we share is far greater than what separates us. Glover’s rousing words recall the reaction of the 1968 crew of astronauts that left earth’s gravitational sphere for the first time, circled the moon, and photographed the earth while in orbit around the moon. Their photograph of the earth, taken on Christmas eve, was accompanied by a reading of the first ten verses of chapter 1 of Genesis, glorying in the creation of the world.
Nonetheless, the view from afar is only one part of the overall perspective. Looking on from afar, seemingly from a perspective shared by God, Victor Glover sends out a message that surely must resound in the hearts and minds of all human beings wherever they are, on whatever side they are to be found; a message that makes taking sides in the conflicts that are tearing our planet apart seem ridiculous. However, let us not forget that God’s perspective is not only a distant gaze from afar. God is with us too! God dwells in our midst. When we seek to meet the gaze of God, we need not sail off to far distant skies, we can also turn our gaze inward.
If the 1968 crew had continued to read Genesis 1, they would have encountered there the vision of a humanity created in “the image and likeness” of a Creator, who is thus revealed as a loving parent to each and every man and woman. In creating us in the divine image, God established a godly reflection within our very being, as part of our identity. The temples that humanity constructs in order to provide a place for encountering God are pale reproductions of the preferred place where we are invited to encounter God: in our midst – in our innermost sanctuary as individuals, in our assemblies as community – it is there that God is ultimately present. It is there that we confront the image and likeness to which we are called to conform, the holiness of the God who says “Be holy as I am holy” (cf. Leviticus 19:1).
In this spirit, one of my favorite texts is the doxology at the end of chapter 4 in the book of Amos:
For lo, the one who forms the mountains,
creates the wind,
reveals God’s thoughts to mortals,
makes the morning darkness,
and treads on the heights of the earth—
the LORD, the God of hosts, is God’s name!
(Amos 4:13)
At the center of the vision from afar, seeing the mountains, the wind, the morning darkness, the heights of the earth, is the vision from a place closer than close. God reveals God’s thoughts to mortals within their very being. In their hearts and souls, God comes to reveal God’s innermost desires and dreams. This is closer than close: not up close but from within our very being. And surely one of these dreams is that we remember that “image and likeness”, and look upon each other as brothers and sisters, bearing a likeness and resemblance to our shared parent God.
At Easter, we celebrate the resurrection of the body! The body, the individual flesh and blood that provides the temple for the Spirit which God breathes into the human person, and the communal body that provides the temple for the Spirit which God breathes into God’s people, are renewed and enlivened at Easter. These living, breathing temples rise up to new life with Christ, and they begin the preparation to receive the Spirit that will send them out at Pentecost as fearless proclaimers of the Good News that death has been vanquished. Each of these bodies is diverse, a multiplicity of shapes and forms, colors and constitutions; in fact, no two are completely alike. And God has created each one, and loves deeply each one.
It is wonderful to be reminded by those few who can look at the world from afar that we are indeed one! However, let us also be reminded that each one of us can look inward to discover God’s loving gaze, a parent who has placed within each of us, within our innermost being, a sanctuary where we commune with God. It is within that sanctuary, whether individual or communal, that we are called to recognize that in every other human person, every other human community, whether defined as friend or foe, there is that sacred inner holy place of encounter with God. It is also for this reason that war is a grave sin against God, an act of catastrophic desecration!