The ground shook as the Saturn 5 rocket slowly ascended into the sky with the crowds cheering. We were on our way to the moon. It felt like a new beginning. And I was there.

We piled into a car- in those days they were rather large- so it fit our family of four and another family of three. In a time when seatbelts weren’t necessarily encouraged or even always available, I slept on the floorboard, my almost five-year-old self curled up at my mom’s feet. My one-year-old sister probably slept beside my mom on that backseat. The dads, NASA scientists, rode up front taking turns driving and the moms slept in the back with the kids. We hurtled through the dark night moving toward the Florida destination arriving at dawn.

I remember riding in school buses that morning to a beach. It was hot. Humid. The air was electric with NASA engineers and scientists and their families staring off at the Saturn 5 rocket standing tall across the inlet. The water shimmed with the sun and the sand burned under our feet. Delays happened and we waited.

The school bus was a shelter from the sun and so I stayed there sitting on a bench, waiting not so patiently. I wouldn’t have had the capacity to totally understand the importance of this moment. However, I knew something was up and so my memories carry a tension of can-this-just-be-over and at the same time this-is-so-exciting-cause-we-rode-a-bus and a-rocket-is-going-to-blast-off.

Finally, the countdown began and we gathered with others on the beach watching history take place. Handheld movie cameras were rolling and polaroid pictures were taken. People were pointing and holding their breath and praying for that rocket to fly. And fly it did. 10, 9, 8. . . . 3, 2, 1. Blastoff. The ground rumbled beneath us and the rocket containing three astronauts rose above the ground and disappeared into the sky with plumes of smoke left behind.

Cheers erupted. The moment was golden. Etched in time.

I wish I could bottle that moment. A time when hopes and dreams and belief that there was something more we could do. A time when America was still reeling from Martin Luther King Jr and Bobby Kennedy’s death. A time when Vietnam and the 60’s had changed the landscape of our land. Yet, a group of engineers and scientists had done something that seemed impossible. And if we could go to the moon and man could walk on it. . . perhaps anything was possible.

We would eventually make the trip home re-entering the world of the every day. Dad would to go work. Mom would take care of me and my sister. We would play dolls and house and go to the park. But then, one night the moment we had been waiting for would happen. The Eagle would land on the moon.

That night, clad in my homemade pajamas, mom would gently pull me out of bed and dad would tell me that I needed to watch this. They would position me next to the little black and white television teetering on a gold metal television stand and take a picture for posterity. My eyes would close from sleepiness. But there I was. Almost five-years-old leaned against the tv as man landed on the moon. As Neil Armstrong took that first step, “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” As two astronauts hopped along the lunar landscape and all of America sat in mesmerized silence.

As I think this morning, 50 years later, of that all-night car journey, the bus ride and the waiting on the beach, I can’t help but wonder at the way all of America held their breath and collectively looked toward the skies. How we united together as one for a moment in time to cheer on this exploration of God’s creation. Somehow the space race revealed in us the need for more than this earth has to offer. That it reflected the fact that we were made for something more. God’s beautiful creation isn’t limited here on earth but throughout the universe and beyond.

In each of us we have a sense of adventure and longing for something more than what we see. A place that only eternity can fulfill in our hearts. Longing to experience that something which we can only imagine.

I long for those moments when we worked together, watched together and cheered together this venture to know more, to risk more and to succeed. I still hold out hope that we will once again rise above the dissension and hatefulness that has invaded our land and join together to understand better, to risk moving forward together to solve the problems that surround us.

That again we would make one gigantic leap for mankind.