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Show Tt3 JlCr'i ttM BCrCrfS UtV.ll fFG SDK M in the heavens on Eve, as choruses on earth sang From good will toward men, came the deep "In the beginning. Cod created the heaven and the earth . . ." The passage from Genesis stirred the soul of the world as never before. It was delivered by a lay reader from St. Christopher's Episcopal Church of League City, Tex., as he soared around the moon on Christmas Eve and looked upon the earth some 250,000 miles away. Astronaut Frank Borman has now told PARADE about this most dramatic moment of the recent lunar flight. "I believe the earth looked at one time the way the moon does now," he described his feelings. "I'm not a fundamentalist. I don't believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible; I believe in a liberal interpretation. Skeptics should remember it isn't a book of science; it's a book of scripture. And I accept its scriptural message that God created the earth." Borman and his two fellow astronauts, James Lovell and William Anders, recognized that the success of their flight depended on the skill of men. Human error a misplaced rivet, a wrong fact fed into the computer, a faulty part could have ended the mission in tragedy. As Borman put it: "I don't believe in miracles. Men make their own miracles. I believe God gave us a free will and a free brain to work out our own problems. Our flight was a success because of the ability of the NASA g astronaut Frank Borman (right) at home with wife, Susan and sons, Frederick (left) and Edwin. Borman family is described by minister as "close-knit.- " Bible-readin- team." Borman is a candid, realistic man. Yet he can't escape the feeling that the successful Apollo 8 trip to the moon during Christmas week had a touch of about "The flight was so from the technical asuncannily perfect orr miracualmost bordered that it pect lous," he confessed. It has been fashionable for men of science to scoff at the belief that the hand of God touches our every action. Surgeons have reported that in all their operations they have never seen any medical evidence of a soul. Botanists who have been able to breed whole new varieties of plants would admit to no effort other than their own. But in the blue-blac- k vastness of Frank that the Borman sure was space, miracle of the flight to the moon was not the doing of men alone. As he looked down at the bleak, cracked face of the moon, he could see the fingerprints of the Creator. Although he described the lunar surface as "a vast, lonely, forbidding expanse of nothing," Borman couldn't help but compare it to the earth at the time that the oceans, the continents and, eventually, man came forth. As Apollo 8 sped past the craters and valleys at 3643 miles an hour, the voices of the three astronauts were heard on radios and television sets around the distant earth. "And the earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep," Anders read. The words of Genesis, recited from what was considered an unreachable celestial sphere until a decade ago, took on new meaning. In sight as well as sound, earthbound men could gain a new grasp of the miracle of the Creation. a miracle it. continued 7 |