The Abundant Life

All his life, Devon had been surrounded by walls. He had been born on the spaceship, just like countless generations before him. There were stories of a place humans had come from long ago called Earth, where there was open air and water that stretched as far as the eye could see. But that’s all they were. Stories. Tales told to children before they went to sleep. On the ship, air and water were carefully monitored and recycled. One wrong move and they could be gone forever. As the ship hurdled through space, all Devon could see outside was the ever-present blackness sprinkled with the fine glitter of distant stars. If the ship ever had a target destination, it had long since been lost. Now all that stretched before them was cold, empty darkness. Then, one day, a message popped up on an old console. "Earth-like planet detected. Adjust coordinates immediately." Most people on the ship scoffed at it. “Earth is a myth,” they said. “There’s never been anything but the spaceship.” But a few of the passengers read the words on the screen and believed. Devon was one of them. He and the others banded together and got a small spacecraft sitting in the hull ready for voyage. He sobbed as he hugged his family goodbye, then he and the others boarded the tiny ship and launched into space, away from the only home they had ever known. They followed the coordinates. For weeks they saw nothing but darkness. Then a star in the distance began to grow brighter. Finally, a tinge of blue-green light came into view—a planet orbiting the star. When they landed on the planet, they stumbled out of the ship into warm, permeating light. Devon’s lungs burned as he sucked in the fresh, fragrant air. He and the others laughed and whooped as they ran along the edge of the great expanse of water. They gave names to the strange creatures they found crawling in the dirt and fluttering in the air. Devon realized this was how humans were meant to live—not confined to a spaceship but roaming free on a big, beautiful planet. As the giant star dip