Posts by Joe Colletti

At midnight I rise to give you thanks for your righteous laws. –Psalm 119.62– The stroke of Midnight between December 31st and January 1st will transition your day, year, and decade to another day, year, and decade. We will only experience such a unique stroke of Midnight as many times as the number of decades…

“I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year–Ebenezer Scrooge–   In A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens describes Ebenezer Scrooge’s encounters with three ghosts—Ghost of Christmas Past, Ghost of Christmas Present, and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. After the third encounter, a resolved Scrooge, cries out “I…

Hundreds of millions of people in nearly every part of the globe were watching the dim, blurry, and shadowy figures of astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin as they were being televised while walking on the moon fifty years ago, this very day, July 20.              Aldrin’s Call for Contemplation  After landing the Apollo Lunar…

  . . . how will anyone recognize the tune they are playing unless the notes are distinct? -1 Corinthians 14:7b- The distinct 24-note graceful and grieving bugle call known as Taps has stirred deep feelings of sadness, sorrow, and sting in most, if not all, of us. Members of the U.S. military salute from…

This past week we commemorated the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. (MLK) who would have turned 90 years old this month if he had not met an untimely death just over 50 years ago. The lyrics of the memorable song The Impossible Dream contains inspiring phrases that can easily be applied to the motivations…

-During the most watched television broadcast at the time the astronauts read the first 10 verses of the Bibleduring their final orbit around the moon-  Joe Colletti, PhDSociety of Urban MonksDecember 2018  Nearly 50 years ago, as the season of Advent ended on Christmas Eve 1968, inhabitants of the earth heard the word of God…

  And God said,“Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years,and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.”(Genesis 1. 14 – 15) In…

Then God said, “Let us make humanity in our image, in our likeness . . .” and “created them; male and female” and“blessed them and said to them, Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth. . .”(Genesis 1. 26 – 28)  Apollo 8 crew saw humanity unlike ever before on December 24, Christmas…

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”(Genesis 1.1)  -December 24, 1968-Apollo 8 Astronaut Frank Borman “had been keeping the spacecraft pointing down to look at the Moon’s surface, but had to roll it around for a navigation sighting by (Astronaut James) Lovell. As the lunar horizon hove into view, (Astronaut Bill) Anders…

As we await the landing of Insight, NASA’s lander, to touch down on Mars on Monday, Novemnber 26 at approximately noon PST, I cannot help but begin to reflect on insight and yearn to search the scriptures for insightful words. Imagining Insight burrowing into the surface of the Red Planet to explore its interior inspires…