He hosted Q&A threads on Reddit, tweeted, shared online conversations with the cast of Star Trek and recorded perhaps the most spectacular viral video of all time when he filmed his own version of David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity,’ from space! While the initial gag of ‘Hey look! He’s singing a song about space…in space!’ was pretty good, as the video continues, as the tweets poured in, the real power of the song became evident. Here was a man singing a song about being cut off from the people he loved, from the world he grew up in, from 99.9999% of humanity. And suddenly his whole online presence shifted into sharper focus. He was (unlike the rest of the internet) not searching for attention, but striving for connection. He wasn’t an avatar but a father, desperate to know what was going on his children’s lives, interested in life back on his home planet and wondering whether the new Star Trek film was any good. You can be one of the most famous men on the planet and still be cripplingly lonely.
• Would you want to be an astronaut? Why / why not?
• What would be the worst part of being an astronaut for you?
• How would you cope with being so far away from your friends and family?
What if we’re all a little bit like Chris? Sometimes it’s easy to feel like we’re a bit out of the loop, orbiting around the rest of humanity at a distance, longing for any kind of connection. This might be because we’re desperate, because we’re left out, or just because we feel irrationally lonely. Whatever the reason, it’s not fun.
• Have you ever felt like that?
• What did you do about it?
Sometimes it’s difficult to notice the people who are feeling adrift, especially when we’re surrounded by friends and feeling like we’re at the centre of the universe.
• Have you ever done anything to help people who were feeling like that?
• What could you do in the future?
One of the interesting things that Jesus did in his ministry was to bring people orbiting around society back into the middle of it. He took lonely people, desperate for connection back into accepted society. He gave people something to connect to, something bigger than themselves. More than anything else, Jesus brought us back into connection with God the father. Read Ephesians 2:13-17.
• What does this tell us about our relationship with God?
• Does this change the way the Church should act towards those on the fringes of society?
