Neil Armstrong and the Right Stuff

[Darris McNeely] Every once in a while you find someone who has the right stuff. Neil Armstrong died over the weekend at age 82. Neil Armstrong was the pilot of the landing craft Eagle that landed on the moon in July of 1969 - was the first human being to set foot on the moon, in fact, on any body, extra-terrestrial body, outside of Earth. He became in a sense an idol. He became someone who could've been a worldwide celebrity from that point on, but Neil Armstrong did something different than most people do with that type of celebrity status. He went into his own life. He became an administrator with NASA. He later took a degree and taught at the University of Cincinnati, but he lived a quiet life on his own and did not seek to cash in on the fame that he had. He alone of all human beings who've ever lived or ever live - because no one will ever have that type of status before. And he went against the grain of the culture of celebrity, the culture of idolatry that we have in this world today.

In fact, he would never give interviews. In fact, I was reading an article and the last interview that he gave just a few months before he died was to really chronicle what he did. And he gave it to a group of Australian accountants of all people. It wasn't some celebrity author. It wasn't some major network, because he wanted what he had done along with the 300,000 plus other engineers to be chronicled and to be put down in a logical fashion. He always felt that what he did was the result of hundreds of thousands of other people and it was a part of a great team. It's an interesting life, an interesting story.

I think as I was looking at it and thinking about it over the weekend, a scripture in Philippians chapter 2 that talks about humility came to my mind where it says, in verse 3, "Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look not only on his own interests, but also for the interests of others" (Philippians 2:3). That's humility. That's teamwork.

I think Neil Armstrong demonstrated that in the way he handled his celebrity and his status through the years, through the decades - more than 40 years after that fact and dying, in one sense, in obscurity in Cincinnati, Ohio over this past weekend. He taught us a lesson. He taught us a lesson in humility and a lesson that goes against the grain of the culture of celebrity and the idolatrous culture that we have in this country and in this world today. Neil Armstrong had the right stuff and it's a lesson for us all.

That's BT Daily. Join us next time.