When spacecraft Columbia crashed and seven astronauts were killed Feb. 1, I found myself singing over and over Thad Roberts’ hymn:
“God of earth and outer space/God of love and God of grace/Bless the astronauts who fly/As they soar beyond the sky./God who flung the stars in space/God who set the sun ablaze/Fling the spacecraft through the air/Let man know your presence there.”
Roberts, then minister of music at South Main Baptist Church, Houston, was inspired to write this by the historic flight of Apollo 11, July 18–24, 1969, the first lunar landing mission by astronauts Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Edwin E. Aldrin Jr.
He began the hymn that week and completed it later during some days of vacation in Red River, New Mexico. He set the hymn to Joseph Perry’s Welsh hymn tune “Aberystwith.” Southern Baptist churches discovered the hymn in “Baptist Hymnal,” 1975, No. 20, and the lines that were appropriate for the space age were sung in many churches.
It speaks to our world today, and we need it. Find a copy of the 1975 hymnal and sing it. Notice the words “astronaut,” “stars in space,” “spacecraft,” “planets bare,” “outer space” and “rockets firing bright.”
These are part of today’s vocabulary and appropriate for singing with our congregations. Let’s discover Thad Roberts’ hymn and sing it with understanding.
William J. Reynolds
Fort Worth, Texas
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