You may not have heard about this (I doubt it), but there is a school-bus sized piece of space junk which is dropping 1054 feet per day, and is due to hit earth sometime in March.  Our government is so concerned about this that they have assigned the Department of Homeland Security to monitor the hunk of space debris’ descent.  I wondered why space junk fell under the purview of the Department of Homeland Security, but then who else would be assigned to keep a peeled eye on it – Fish and Wildlife?  I guess that since our ports are secure, the Y2K bug has been exterminated, and the guy responsible for the anthrax attacks is safely in the federal pen, they have the extra resources available to track the space junk that slips out of orbit (do I have my facts straight?).

            If talk radio is an accurate pulse reading of the nation then many of us are worried about a school-bus sized hunk of space junk falling on their houses.  I have heard several folks say that they are going to wear hard hats until the whole disturbing episode reaches its climactic end.  I am not worried about it a bit.  My only concern is that George Clinton will miss his opportunity to write a hit song about it (I think “space junk” is a natural rhyme for p-funk).

            Of course the airwaves and print media are just as filled with snarky, self-satisfied, smarty-pants commentators (like this writer) commenting upon the silliness of the general populace running around in hard hats because the sky is falling.  Any thinking person knows the odds are small that a chunk larger than a diet-coke can makes it through God’s wonderfully engineered atmosphere.  Beyond that the odds are 7to3 that it hits water, and then 1to 1 it hits habitable land, and then a gazillion to one that it will hit your street.  Say it does hit your street, the odds are probably 10 to 1 that it will hit a neighbor’s house, and then you will be the happy recipient of your allotted 15 minutes of fame, as you get to meet Katie Couric, Billy Bush, and do the Tyra Banks Show.  Falling space junk, then, should be looked upon as a happy occurrence for most of us, and only as a tragedy for the unlucky few.

            Then again, you and I know (inductively and deductively) that of all the rules and laws that govern our universe- gravity, the second law of thermodynamics, the infield fly rule – the one inviolate law is Murphy’s.  In fact we know this from an authority as authoritative as Jesus Himself (and he has all authority which is as much authority as there is):

Therefore don’t be anxious about tomorrow, tomorrow will take care of itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own.  Matthew 6.34

            The falling hunk of space junk serves as a reminder of randomness of life – and that’s a good thing.  Anything that reminds us that we don’t know what will happen – that we do not have the luxury of time – that there is an urgency to asserting goodness is a good thing.

Come now you who say “today or tomorrow we shall go to such and such a city, and buy and sell and make money.  You do not know what your life will be like tomorrow, you are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.  Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills it we shall live and do this or that.”  But as it is, you boast in your arrogance; and all such boasting is evil.  James 4.13-16

            James, of course doesn’t end the thought there.  If he did, we would be rightfully chastened, but not challenged.  Life is uncertain, seemingly random, certainly tenuous.  But our response should couple the humility such knowledge brings with action.  James ends his thought with this challenge:

Therefore, if anyone knows the right thing to do, and doesn’t do it – this is sin.  James 4.17.

We know good things to do.  Let’s go do them – especially before March, and one of us takes a piece of space junk to the noggin – then again what else is out there, falling to earth, that we don’t know about?  I guess we better do those things now.