Above, I am presenting a picture of someone who has been working to strengthen her arms. Below, I am letting you know how Merriam-Webster defines the phrase, "A Call To Arms." That phrase, as you will see, is the headline I have chosen for today's blog posting. Here is that definition from Merriam-Webster (or definitions, really):
Call To Arms
(1) A summons to engage in active hostilities
(2) A summons, invitation, or appeal to undertake a particular course of action
Example: A political call to arms
In today's blog posting, which I have named a "Call To Arms," I am using the phrase in the second, not the first, sense listed by Merriam-Webster. The "Example" noted, which is exactly what I am talking about, is not actually identified by the dictionary as an "example." That's my word. I assume you'll get my intent. A "political call to arms" is what I want to propose, as I am writing out this blog posting today.
I have been writing one blog posting per day, every day, since January 1, 2010, and I undertook this assignment as a personal exercise, to help me "think about" issues and ideas that seem relevant and important to me. As I have continued to pursue this discipline, I have become focused, ever more certainly, on what I call "politics." We do "live in a political world," and I have been thinking, more and more, about what "self-government" requires. I like my own phrasing, "self-government," as superior to the more common term, "democracy," because the term "self-government" emphasizes what I have come to think of as the most critical challenge confronting those of us who are living in the United States today - namely, the need for many more of us to become more directly and personally involved, ourselves, in what we feel it is natural to call "our" government.
The United States, as a nation, has a lot to atone for, but it has a lot to celebrate, too. Martin Luther King, Jr. did not, as he might have, spend his time criticizing the nation and its people for its historical failures (though he did make note of them, frequently). He spent his time calling the nation to the moral and very practical imperatives to which it needed to turn its attention: racial justice, economic justice, and an end to the unconstrained death and destruction to which the United States government was devoting the nation, by way of the War in Vietnam.
Today, of course, we must continue to address - forcefully, and as one of our highest priorities - the need to provide racial and economic justice to each and every person living in the United States. We also need to restore genuine citizen control over our government, which is responding, today, mostly to those with the most money. The Declaration of Independence, which outlined the revolutionary task that ultimately resolved itself by way of our Constitution (and the amendments to that Constitution) established a system that contemplates that we will use our collective powers to achieve the goals and objectives which the majority wish to achieve.
We also need to recognize "reality," and start conforming our activities to the requirements that we apparently think we can ignore, the requirements that make it imperative that we treasure and protect the "environment" which sustains all life on this brilliant garden of a planet, hung like an ornament in the vast darkness of immeasurable space. Dealing with "Global Warming" is mandatory. Please read and consider what is presented, below.
This is a "Call To Arms."
After spending 178 days aboard the International Space Station, astronaut Ron Garan returned not just with scientific data but with a revelation he calls “the big lie.” Orbiting high above Earth, Garan was awestruck by the planet’s natural wonders - auroras swirling like living brushstrokes, and lightning storms flashing like camera bulbs on a global scale. But what struck him most was the paper-thin layer of atmosphere enveloping the planet a fragile, shimmering veil standing between all life and the void of space. In that moment, the Earth seemed both resilient and heartbreakingly vulnerable.
From his unique vantage point, Garan saw a planet with no borders, no political lines only one interconnected home. But on the ground, humanity continues to divide and exploit. He came to a stark realization: the world’s systems are upside down. Our economy treats the Earth as a disposable resource, a subsidiary of profit. To him, this illusion is the “big lie” the belief that growth should come before sustainability. Garan insists the correct hierarchy must be planet → society → economy a realignment that recognizes Earth’s survival as the foundation of all progress.
This isn’t a poetic abstraction it’s a practical warning. Garan’s space-borne epiphany compels us to rethink how we build policy, design infrastructure, and relate to nature. If our atmosphere so breathtakingly thin is compromised, so is everything beneath it. From this celestial vantage, the urgency of Earth’s challenges becomes undeniable. Whether it’s climate change, resource depletion, or social inequality, every crisis is linked to our failure to prioritize the planet first.
Ron Garan’s message, delivered with the quiet gravity of someone who’s actually seen our world from the outside, is a plea for awareness and action. He reminds us that we live on “a paradise in the cosmos” a world that is incredibly rare, unimaginably beautiful, and desperately in need of our care.
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Credits: Based on insights and public reflections from astronaut Ron Garan, as shared in interviews, books, and global talks following his time aboard the International Space Station (ISS).
This is one of the most beautiful, realigning, clarity-producing pieces of yours that I have read. Thank God you accepted your assignment almost 16 years ago! Thank you for bringing us Garan's testimony. I will share this with others in my small world.
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