Depending on the situation, I describe myself as is indicated on my various business cards – and I have a handful, to be sure. But of all my titles, including Templar Knight, I do not yet have a card for this one: alien.
I am an alien among the people of planet Earth. I had my suspicions at first – but now I am certain of it. Not an illegal alien, to be sure. Just a garden variety alien, as I am about to fully disclose. I also openly confess to being a really geeky alien as well, frequently lapsing into a full-blown case of the Stendhal Syndrome on a regular basis. I just chalk it up to blending human genes with alien biology – not always a clean burning mix on any given day.
So, what does it look like to see a standard, run-of-the-mill alien covered in human cell layers lapse into a Stendhal Syndrome outbreak? I will attempt to describe what recently occurred on 6:
March 2025 at 6:30 PM EST.
I planned, and then carefully carved out, a personal, protected locus of sheltered 4-dimensional geometry in the space-time-continuum (STC) on that evening in my living room. The mass of my body bent space and time at the geometric center of my locus. Certainly, my current mass caused a tad more bending than I would like – but still… you get the picture.
I sat in my comfortable chair (the locus in the STC) and stared transfixed at the wide screen image of the SpaceX Starship 8 frosted white with the moist warm air of the Gulf of America meeting the supercold, cryogenic mix just behind its stainless skin. As I watched the clouds of white, pure frozen water vapor fall from the ship onto the warm south Texas sand, I could feel the first effects of the Stendhal Syndrome break over me like a wintertime wave on a north shore Hawaiian beach.
The Stendhal Syndrome describes a serious emotional response to physical items – commonly art (for which the syndrome was originally attributed) or any other material physical objects, such as historical artifacts, cool cars, or… spaceships fueled and ready to fly. Its symptoms are rapid heartbeat, dizziness, confusion caused by neural overload, and even nausea.
Now, imagine the effect of the syndrome on a fully sentient human-alien hybrid! Yep – that’s me watching rockets. Every time. And the bigger the rocket, the worse the symptoms.
So, “there I was,” in the parlance of Naval aviators, all dressed up and ready to dance with the largest rocket ever designed, built, and flown. I was watching and anticipating the launch of a machine with the power of more than two Saturn V moon rockets designed to carry humanity en masse to another world in just a few years hence.
As the clock ticked down nearing T minus 0, the familiar symptoms worsened, and I did really begin to experience the light-headedness and racing heartbeat that accompanies each launch of this stainless-steel beast about to come to life and do astonishing things right before my hungry alien eyes.
As in every case of every rocket, small or large, I envisioned I was onboard, experiencing the massive machine trembling beneath me with each and every electronic decision to turn one pump on, another off, feeling their unique vibrational signatures passing through my mostly fluid body, and hearing the hiss of the ventilation system just above my head.
I knew these sounds and vibrations intimately and personally, for in my life’s quest to escape the bondages of this planet, I have had the blessing to be aboard every NASA space shuttle (save Challenger) while they were being processed for launch; I have touched robot satellites bound for Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars; and I have stood staring like an alien stalker into the aero shell of Curiosity for an hour, not even 36 inches away from where I stood. I was present in the loading bay assisting with the loading of nuclear powered instrumentation for one of its sensors as the rover was being prepared for its Mars rendezvous.
While gazing intently at Curiosity, I easily imagined that it was just big enough for me to fly inside her all the way to the Red Planet…. My co-worker in that white room had to break my fantasizing and remind me that we there to install an instrument on the rover, not just stand around and lust after the machines.
I also designed and built an undersea habitat for NASA in which Claudia and I have lived for weeks on various missions. Inside it, every night after the lights were extinguished, I loved the feeling of the vibrations and inhaling the sweet air coming from the ventilation systems that kept us alive. I never had a single thought that they would fail us, and they never did.
Thus, night after blissful night I was lulled off to the sweetest sleep of my life there, held in the embrace of the life support systems, breathing a certified alien atmosphere inside my cocoon that made up this cradle immersed inside an alien world.
Underwater, I knew that my treasured steel beast creation temporarily, at least, solved my problem of being an alien in a strange land – because inside her, I was home, where I was created to be, off terra firma and into the alien void for which I was commissioned by my Creator.
There, in that place with no air to breathe and no gravity outside to pull me down, the stress of being an alien on the wrong world was relieved. And, for the record, I never once wanted those missions to end.
But wait, this story is not over for this alien – or you either, beloved – not in the least!
So far, I have accomplished something that not everyone in my high school senior class has been able to duplicate. I am still walking these dusty paths to Glory, day by day, and still awakening to new sunrises each morning, and viewing glorious sunsets each evening. Not all my classmates have made it this far. Indeed, we have lost a significant number over the passing decades.
But I have noticed that instead of “becoming accustomed” to a loved one or a dear friend’s passing, they each seem to be more and more difficult for me. I have often puzzled over this at the feet of my Lord Master. It seems logical that the more loss you experience, the easier it would be to cope, if for no other reason than just sheer practice. But for me, it has all grown successively more somber and difficult.
In this mystery, my Savior has gently reminded me that it is not actually solely sorrow that I feel. It is just as much homesickness and longing for the place in which I was originally created – the place where my companions have been permitted to end their terrestrial journeys and cross over into eternity.
I am feeling the loss of friendship and love; but likewise missing the perfection from which I came and formerly knew very well. I am yearning in tears for that place where I will reclaim my ultimate citizenship and eternal destiny after being assigned here to this very distant and difficult duty station as an alien, no less.
Now I clearly see through the tears of loss that this longing is a deep desire to return home to the place where everything has existed in perfection for an eternity before – and will continue for all the eternity that lies ahead.
And there it is, beloved – I truly am an alien here and have always been, yearning to return home.
That is precisely why when a loved one crosses over to that place, I not only weep for the loss of their company, but I weep even more as I cope with homesickness and the longing to return to that place of which I have only the faintest whispers of a memory. However, sometime soon, that memory will become full reality once again!
The Apostle Paul felt it too, as he clearly expressed,: “For now, we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.” (1 Corinthians 13:12)
Paul also spoke these words, describing his ever-present dilemma: “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. But if I am to live on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which to choose. But I am hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better; yet to remain on in the flesh is more necessary for your sake.” (Philippians 1:21-24)
Paul is not referring to what Eastern mysticism calls “reincarnation.” It is far more than that. The Word says nothing at all about cyclical lives. Indeed, it says that this trip is a one-time assignment: “…it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment…” (Hebrews 9:27) But the Bible does reveal some things about my actual origins and future in that spectacular world.
The Word also speaks about that distinctive feeling of being an alien here on planet Earth. Prayed King David to his Lord during his final days, “For we are aliens and temporary residents in Your Presence as were all our ancestors. Our days on Earth are like a shadow, without hope.” (1 Chronicles 29:15)
But, unlike David, we live in a time where our Hope has indeed come. And His Name is Jesus!
We are reminded by the Apostle Peter, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you. You are being guarded by God’s power through faith for a salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.” (1 Peter3:1-5)
And it is that blessed hope that we long for each day. Therefore, I will freely call it what it has become to me – homesickness triggered by a dim remembrance of from where we came. That place remains fixed as the very hope and sweet anticipation of our calling:
“I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, would give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what is the wealth of His glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the mighty working of His strength.” (Ephesians 1:17-19)
I am indeed right now a stranger in a strange land. More so than a Templar or any other designation that I may bear, I am an alien through and through. And I am so very, very excited about the next horizon that leads from here all the way to an eternity in that heavenly place where we are accorded full citizenship.
In our eternal home, we will carry none of our Earthly titles or salutations. But there, we shall no longer be considered aliens. We are sons and daughters of the Most High God, and co-inheritors with our Savior, Champion, Lord Master, and Brother of all that there is!