As a 30-year career NASA Engineer and Scientist, it is easy for me to dream of and speak of the fanciful future that is almost upon us. I know that it is no longer vaporware, but our future is unfolding round about us with a mostly hidden – and yet with a relentless purpose even as I write these words.
NASA is effectively now out of the crewed deep space exploration game, as is nearly every other nation except China, which is about to catch up and pass everyone else except for SpaceX. SpaceX WILL have humans on Mars permanently within 10 years. This is not speculation.
Further, completely off everyone’s radar, there are serious efforts to settle the undersea frontiers with permanent human cities in the exact same footprint of timeline.
And there will be SMOTJ Templars as members of all those colonies. How do I know that?
Trust me.
What will Templars be doing there? The same thing Templars are doing on the surface of our planet right now: being a faithful Christian Templar, living a Chivalrous life, growing daily in generous Christian charity, assisting Christians at risk in the Holy Land and throughout the world, respecting their fellow Knights and Dames, and honoring the lawful requests of the Sovereign Military Order of the Temple of Jerusalem – while living on another planet or under the sea.
In this respect, our Templars will be living and expressing the will and good pleasure of our Master, King, and Sovereign in these marvelous, distant, and dangerous places exactly as we do here. We will therefore be setting the example of selfless Christians, living all-in-lives of sacrifice and chivalrous honor, building these new civilizations through great cost of self and generosity of spirit and deed – just like our Templar forefathers of nine centuries ago.
The Word of Life instructs us in this duty on any world we may find ourselves: “…work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God Who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. Do all things without grumbling or disputing; so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God – above reproach…” (Philippians 2:12b-15a)
A majority of our forefathers (80%) did not fight in battle, but instead supported the battlefield cause in other, much more secure but necessary activities such as farming, banking, and administration.1
Likewise, a vast majority of modern Templars will not populate distant planets or undersea colonies. But just like the 20% who secured our reputation in history did step out on those battlefields with the full intent of giving their all, there will be a few who will take those odds in the deep ocean of space or in the oceans of this planet because it is their calling. And there, we shall certainly make a difference, because our calling is just and our eternal destiny is assured, as we “work out our calling in fear and trembling, because it is God Who is at work in us.”
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1. Barber, Malcolm. The New Knighthood: A History of the Order of the Temple. Cambridge University Press, 1994, pp. 44–45, 190–192.