Fragile Things: Rockets, Power, and the Quiet Cost of Forgetting What Life Is Worth

by Lonnie King

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There are days when the fragility of life feels like something we all agree on—like when someone we love gets sick, or we hear of a young person gone too soon, or we feel our own chest tighten for reasons we can’t explain.

And then there are days when we seem to forget entirely.

We go numb. We scroll. We chase spectacle. We normalize destruction.

We watch apartment buildings collapse in Gaza and turn the page. We see images of bloodied civilians in Ukraine and click past them, not because we don’t care—but because we don’t know what to do with the weight of it.

The loss of human life—babies, elders, families—gets reduced to a 90-second clip on the evening news. We lament it for a moment, maybe even cry, and then move on. Because we can. Because it doesn’t touch us directly.

I’m not anti-Israel. I’m not anti-anybody. But I am against the way we’ve learned to absorb human suffering like background noise. Like the cost of doing business. Like the necessary fallout of someone else’s justified ambition.

I can see what war does. And I can see what’s left behind. And it doesn’t look like victory. It looks like grief that no one has time to carry.

When the Sky Lights Up

This week, a SpaceX rocket exploded during a test in South Texas. No one was onboard, and thankfully no one was hurt. But the footage was stunning—an enormous fireball, visible for miles.

It looked like something out of a dystopian film. And maybe that’s what it was. A preview. A reminder.

I don’t know what rockets have to do with my faith, except that when I saw that SpaceX vehicle explode, it reminded me how easily we think we are gods—even when we claim to worship another one.

We build things that promise glory, but forget they’re fueled by fragile systems, and sometimes, fragile egos. We call it progress. But sometimes it feels like we’re sprinting past reverence and straight into recklessness.

This isn’t just about rockets. It’s about the leaders we trust, the systems we dismantle, the way we mistake domination for vision. It’s about the creeping sense that we’re no longer interested in governing for the sake of people. We’re governing for the sake of legacy. Or ego. Or vengeance.

And when that becomes the priority, life becomes negotiable.

What We Choose to Respect

I’ve been turning this over in my head: do we really believe human life is sacred anymore?

I grew up in a religion that would absolutely say yes to that question. They’d tell you that every life is sacred. But what I came to realize was—they didn’t necessarily mean it was sacred to them. It was sacred to God. Which meant they had to tolerate it, not cherish it.

They acknowledged its worth in the abstract, but not in the everyday. And that’s what made it performative. It wasn’t born of love or conviction—it was more like a reluctant nod to the God they claimed to worship. A way of saying, “Fine, we’ll deal with it.”

But I want to try to live like someone who believes life—in its entirety, from conception to the last breath—is sacred.

Not in the performative sense. Not in the slogans or the legislative talking points. But in the everyday, ordinary way we treat people. The policies we accept. The cruelty we tolerate. The stories we ignore. The corners we cut.

We fund corporations before we feed children. We argue about who deserves help rather than how to give it. We praise the unborn while neglecting the unhoused, the hungry, and the chronically ill.

Some of the loudest voices claiming to be “pro-life” often seem to lose interest once that life requires healthcare, shelter, education, or empathy. It’s not that their convictions are wrong—it’s that they’re incomplete.

And when our reverence for life begins and ends at birth, what we’re practicing isn’t really pro-life. It’s pro-symbol. And symbols don’t need food, or clean water, or safe places to sleep at night.

Faith Without a Slogan

I don’t really subscribe anymore to the version of faith I grew up with. At least not the packaged, verse-for-every-moment kind. I don’t find peace in the way scripture was used to draw battle lines instead of welcome mats. But I still believe in something deeper—something rooted in the idea that life is not random or worthless, and that the way we treat each other echoes beyond the moment.

I believe in stories that remind us we were made for more than conquest. That power doesn’t make someone right. That goodness isn’t weak. That humility isn’t naïve.

You can find those stories in a lot of places—yes, even in the Bible—but they don’t belong to a single book or religion or tradition. They belong to anyone willing to slow down long enough to see the person in front of them and say: your life matters. Not because of what you produce. Not because of what you believe. Not because you’re useful to someone more powerful. But because you’re here. And that’s enough.

We Don’t Have to Be Gods

Maybe all of this is just me trying to remember something I don’t want to forget.

That people are worth protecting. That speed isn’t the same as progress. That governance without compassion becomes tyranny. And that when the sky lights up and the flames shoot high and we cheer as if something has been conquered—we might want to stop and ask what’s actually being lost.

We don’t have to be gods. We just have to be human. But that’s harder than it looks when the world keeps rewarding the opposite.

Grace and grit to you! — LK