For days, the unknown fate of five wealthy adventurers who chose to go deep sea diving in a miniature submersible ironically named “Titan” dominated headlines worldwide. 

Evidence eventually pointed to a catastrophic implosion less than two hours into the voyage, but fascination persists: What went wrong? And who’s liable? 

Government agencies (the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard, the Canadian Transportation Safety Board) continue to invest resources in seeking answers to such questions. 

Ironies

A few powerful ironies may help us with perspective here: 

A fishing boat headed from Libya to Italy, packed with would-be migrant laborers, went down on June 19, the day after contact was lost with the Titan. As many as 500 people died. But there were few headlines, fewer outcries, and no government agencies expending man hours and cash in finding answers to that tragedy.

In any given year, half a million children die of malaria. That’s an average of 1,320 children a day. Or 6,600 during the five days when the whole world was rushing to rescue the five men in the Titan. Have you seen headlines about this? I haven’t. International rescue teams, rushing to the children’s aid? Not so much.

But there’s more. During that same five day period, 11,356 people likely died from disease caused by unclean water – and 21,600 children from diseases like measles that a vaccine would have prevented – while 15,600 people were trafficked. 

Such figures give the phrase “catastrophic implosion” a whole different meaning, do they not? 

But somehow, such figures merit no outcry, no pooling of resources for relief, not even cursory attention. 

You see my point, doubtless. 

Clearly, something other than human compassion motivates our fascination with the Titan and its passengers. 

We successfully ignore exponentially larger tragedies. 

Routinely. 

So, what is it about a few rich guys accidentally killing themselves that compels such sustained focus?

How God Made Us

The Creator surely hard-wired us to crave knowledge of and mastery over Creation. Accounts in Genesis in which the image of God is shared and dominion over God’s other creatures given – these accounts imply an anointed appetite, conferred on God’s most beloved creations (us) in love, for adventure in the world and awe at its wonders. 

Indeed, God commands humanity to name things – to rule over things – to prosper and multiply and “subdue the earth …” God wields His own authority in the emphatic communicating of ours. 

All the scientific breakthroughs ever made, all the uncharted territory ever explored, all the inventions ever birthed through curiosity wedded with genius prove the potency of being “made in the image of God.” Like God, we are makers. Like God, we are masters. When we live into making and mastering God’s creation, we obey and please our Creator.

Seen through that lens, the passengers of the Titan look less like spoiled tourists and more like men saying “yes” to a holy hunger. They knew they were risking their lives, but they felt the risk was worth it. They were going to see something special – something hidden – something that pointed both to man’s ingenuity and to nature’s power, something that spelled out the hubris of man mistaking himself for God.

But their deaths ironically mirror the deaths of the passengers of the Titanic, whose wreckage was the main attraction of the Titan’s trip. 

The expansively engineered Titanic was the “unsinkable” ship – that sank. 

The Titan, too, tested human engineering against the brute force of nature – and failed.

There’s more to these stories than failure. There’s also sin… unintended, perhaps… even unconscious… but deadly.

Sinking… in sin

We’ve already seen how many ways we are “like God” in our making, mastering, knowing selves. 

But we are often dangerously unlike God in the ways we use our God-like powers. 

Unlike God, we lack all the answers and the bounds of our sovereignty are obvious. 

Unlike God, we tend toward selfishness and immediacy rather than selflessness and the long view. 

Unlike God, we are vulnerable to temptation. To distraction. To error. To evil.

We often pretend that we are more like God than we really are. 

We often willfully blind ourselves, believe malarkey about God-like infallibility, even boast of having built the “unsinkable” ship. 

We give ourselves permission to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for tickets to go down for an up-close view of the unsinkable ship at the bottom of the ocean, when more worthy uses for those dollars (a cure for malaria, clean water globally, universal vaccinations, an end to human trafficking – just for instance) abound.

Our pridefulness, especially, can chafe – and prompt divine blessings like inquisitiveness, creativity, and courage to morph into twisted versions of themselves. 

Nuclear power – to illuminate homes, or to incinerate cities? 

Surgical precision – to save lives, or to mutilate bodies? 

Everything that can be used can be misused; everything given by God for His glory and our good can be appropriated by the Enemy for destruction and despair.

Gifts of God’s Grace

Ultimately, I think the Titan tragedy gives us a startling glimpse of the literal depths of our potential depravity. Trusting wealth – prioritizing power – living for me, in this moment – can literally kill me.

The Titan tragedy also forces all-important questions:

What are my gifts from God, and whom do I glorify with them?

Under whose authority do I operate? How do I expend my own authority?

To what / whom do I pay attention? Who is missing from the view I have of the world – and how important are they to God?

For what / whom am I willing to risk my life – and am I ever mindful of the fact that God gave His life, for me?

We should pray for the souls of the men who died on Titan. 

We should pray for their families and friends who are grieving. 

And we should pray for ourselves and one another, too… 

Pray that we will be reminded by both the Titan and the Titanic that this life is brief and uncertain, and that we are accountable to our Maker for what we make of it.

Pray that what we make of it will be beautiful in the Maker’s sight.

Each Life Converges to Some Centre

Emily Dickinson

Each life converges to some centre
Expressed or still;
Exists in every human nature
A goal,

Admitted scarcely to itself, it may be,
Too fair
For credibility’s temerity
To dare.

Adored with caution, as a brittle heaven,
To reach
Were hopeless as the rainbow’s raiment
To touch,

Yet persevered toward, surer for the distance;
How high
Unto the saints’ slow diligence
The sky!

Ungained, it may be, by a life’s low venture,
But then,
Eternity enables the endeavoring
Again.