The Earth Behind a Man’s Thumb

Layton was a newspaperman famous for his later career as a government public information officer in several administrations.

He was struggling with what the astronauts could say, so the story goes, when his wife suggested the opening verse of the Bible, from Genesis in the Old Testament.

And so it came to pass that on Christmas Eve, 1968, Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders divided up the scripture and began to read.

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, 'Let there be light'; and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness.

"And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night."

When Borman read the final passage—Genesis, chapter one, verse ten—the long, deeply painful, and disorienting year of 1968 and all those who went through it had an opportunity to stop and contemplate their place in the vast universe of history.