The World and Everything in It: March 18, 2026

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LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Good morning!

The war in Iran and what victory might look like.

COTTON: Anyone who says that we’re already losing is akin to saying Eisenhower was losing because he hadn’t made it to Berlin within two weeks of D-Day.

NICK EICHER, HOST: That’s ahead on Washington Wednesday with Hunter Baker.

Also today, WORLD Tour: Haiti prepares for its first elections in a decade.

Later: An astronaut on grit, faith, and getting stuck in space.

WILMORE: We were in a position where we didn't plan to be there and couldn't leave. But ultimately, the Lord put us there.

And WORLD Commentator Janie B. Cheaney on the purpose we were made for.

MAST: It’s Wednesday, March 18th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. 

I’m Lindsay Mast.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

MAST: Up next, Kent Covington has today’s news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Iran war update » At the White House, President Trump welcomed Ireland’s prime minister in the Oval Office.

TRUMP: Well thank you very much. It’s a great honor to have Taoiseach Martin from Ireland and thank you very much for being here.

He said the two had planned to talk at length about trade. But for reporters invited into the room, the war in Iran was top of mind.

The president again said that the military mission is going extremely well, systematically devastating Iran’s military and the regime’s ability to wage war.

TRUMP:  If we left right now, it would take 10 years for them to rebuild, but we're not ready to leave yet, but we, uh, we'll be leaving in the near future.

Prime Minister Martin, for his part, said Ireland's official position is to emphasize diplomacy.

MARTIN:  We have to continue to work to see can we bring peace, uh, different regime to Iran, where Iranians can live in peace again, and the people in the Middle East can live in peace.

Trump this week said the US and Iranian officials have begun talks aimed at ending the war. But he said it’s tough, in part because it’s unclear who is actually in charge in Iran right now.

And Israel says it has killed two more of Iran's most powerful leaders in strikes. Ali Larijani headed Iran's Supreme National Security Council. He had been widely seen as the country's de facto leader, given that its newly named supreme leader has not been seen publicly in weeks.

Also killed: Basij commander Gholamreza Soleimani whose forces brutally cracked down on protesters recently, killing tens of thousands.

Strait of Hormuz » Trump on Tuesday also said he’s not happy that many other nations are not stepping up to help guard the Strait of Hormuz from Iranian attacks, particularly NATO allies.

TRUMP:   So we helped them and they didn't help us, and I think that's a very bad thing for nato. NATO's making a very foolish mistake and I, I've long said that, you know, I wonder whether or not NATO would ever be there for us. So this is a, this was a great test.

He said of NATO—quote—“We helped them and they didn’t help us.” And he hinted at possible consequences for that, but he did not elaborate.

At the same time, he said the US doesn’t actually need their help, and that the US military is capable of fully achieving its mission without them.

Iran says only certain countries will be allowed to send ships through the strait. The attacks on oil tankers and refining facilities have caused oil prices to spike.

Counterterrorism official resigns in protest » The president also reacted to news that the administration’s top counterterrorism official had resigned in protest over the war.

TRUMP:  Well, I read his tape and I always thought he was a nice guy, but I always thought he was weak on security, very weak on security.

Joe Kent was the director of the National Counterterrorism Center.

He issued a highly critical statement claiming Iran “posed no imminent threat" to the United States. He also said he believes it's clear the U.S. started the war “due to pressure from Israel.”

Kent is a veteran and a former Washington state political candidate.

Trump added that when he read the resignation letter:

TRUMP:   I realized that it's a good thing that he's out because he said that Iran was not a threat. Iran was a threat. Every country realized what a threat Iran was. The question is whether or not they wanted to do something about it.

Though again, Kent’s statement emphasized his belief that Iran posed no imminent threat. The president insists it did.

Rubio on Cuba » Also during that meeting, Trump spoke to the crisis in Cuba, saying it’s in very bad shape, and adding —quote—“We’ll be doing something with Cuba very soon.”

He added that Cuban leaders are now in talks with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was also in the Oval Office at the time, and he told reporters:

RUBIO:  The bottom line is their economy doesn't work. It's a non-functional economy. It's an economy that has survived —has survived on subsidies from the Soviet Union and now from Venezuela. They don't get subsidies anymore, so they're in a lot of trouble. And the people in charge, they, they don't know how to fix it, and so they have to get new people in.

Cuba has been enduring its third nationwide blackout in four months. Electricity is slowly being restored to hospitals and some homes. But officials warn that the crumbling power grid could fail again.

That comes amid a US energy blockade of Cuba.

Zelenskyy in London » Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy traveled to London Tuesday to address members of Parliament in persona about Ukraine's ongoing war against Russian invaders.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer emphasized the importance that the world not forget the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

STARMER: The focus must remain on Ukraine. There is obviously a conflict in Iran going on in the Middle East, but we can't lose focus on what's going on in Ukraine and the need for our support there.

Zelenskyy said Ukraine has a lot to offer its allies in terms of what it's learning from this war.

ZELENSKYY: The world has entered a completely new time, a time of drones, a time of AI…

He went on to say that Ukraine has gained expertise in the construction of so-called interceptor drones, and he's offering that expertise to Kyiv's allies.

ZELENSKYY: We are capable of producing at least 2000 effective and combat-proven interceptors every day. We can produce more. It depends on investment. We need about 1,000 interceptors a day and we can supply at least another 1,000 a day to our allies.

Britain wants to help Ukraine support Gulf countries under regular attack from Iran.

Save America Act » The Senate kicked off debate on a voter verification bill on Thursday with no end in sight. WORLD’s Carolina Lumetta reports now from the Capitol.

CAROLINA LUMETTA: The SAVE America Act, would require voters to prove citizenship before registering to vote and to show photo ID before casting a ballot.

President Trump wants to add a ban on most mail-in ballots along with bans on men competing in women’s sports and transgender surgeries for minors.

The Senate is considering the bill as a so-called “message” from the House, which allows Senate Majority Leader John Thune to start debate on it with a simple majority rather than the typical 60-vote threshold.

Unlike a filibuster debate, senators can pause this "extended debate" and resume it the next morning — allowing it to stretch across multiple days.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Carolina Lumetta in Washington.

I'm Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: Hunter Baker is here for Washington Wednesday. Plus, astronaut Butch Wilmore on his unexpectedly long stay in space.

This is The World and Everything in It.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: It’s Wednesday, March 18th. Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Lindsay Mast.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Time now for Washington Wednesday!

MAST: Joining us now is political scientist Hunter Baker. He is a WORLD Opinions Contributor and our regular Washington Wednesday analyst. Good morning Hunter!

HUNTER BAKER, GUEST: Good morning.

EICHER: So as we were preparing this, Hunter, you said something I really wanted to pursue with you, and that’s your view that the president has, in effect, wagered his presidency on the outcome of the Iran war. Pretty straightforward notion, but I wonder whether you mean by that that it’s a close enough proxy for the midterm elections—i.e., you lose in Iran, you lose the midterms. But winning in Iran, does that actually translate into winning politically that way?

BAKER: I think this is the whole ball of wax for him. Going after Iran is something that probably other American presidents have wanted to do, but have been intimidated by the task, because it is a big task. And we see that they are the number one world sponsor of terror. They did exact a very high toll from us during the war on terror, when we were trying to basically avenge the September 11 attacks and to sort of build a new order of democracy and freedom in the Middle East.

And so we have now gone after them, in part because of their nuclear ambitions and their other aggression. And this is turning out to be a very big job. We talked about maybe it’s a few days, and maybe the Israelis would be doing something for a few weeks, but it looks like it’s going to take considerably longer to unfold. This is not like Venezuela, where we simply get in touch with somebody a little further down the ladder and they’re amenable to working with us, and there we go. This is going to be a much bigger challenge.

In complicating matters—and this is why I say that Trump has really staked his whole presidency on it—is the Strait of Hormuz. And we mentioned that before, that the Strait of Hormuz is affecting the world oil equation, and we’ve seen the prices shoot straight up at the pump, and that’s very upsetting to people. It’s one of the most attention-getting sort of prices, but really it has an impact worldwide.

And so there’s the domestic part. Americans are extremely wary about another Middle Eastern military adventure. They’re going to be very unhappy with pain at the pump if that continues. And at the same time, it doesn’t help China in the sense that they need that oil from Iran, but I wonder if it’s going to aggravate them into doing anything that is counter to our interests.

So there’s a lot at stake domestically, internationally, and the people that we’re up against in Iran, they know that. And so their goal is to drag this thing out as much as possible and to cause as much pain as possible.

EICHER: Absolutely. And that’s why I framed the question as I did, because I can see how losing or having a difficult time getting bogged down in Iran translates into losing. But I wonder, what’s the upside? If you win, then what’s the prize politically?

BAKER: If you win, it’s an incredible prize. If you win, you have vastly contributed to the stability of the world. If you turn around that regime in Iran, it is incredibly good for so many different people and good for us. They’ve been a thorn in our side for, gosh—

EICHER: Fifty years. But Hunter, does it translate to domestic politics, is my question?

BAKER: Yes, I think it does, because this would be different from the terrible and humiliating failures that we had in Iraq and, most notably, in Afghanistan. If you come away from this with a win, then you change the whole narrative, and then you look like somebody who was able to do what others were not able to do. It adds to that idea that Trump is a real winner, and that when he undertakes something, he’s serious about it, and he’s going to win.

MAST: Well, Hunter, then let’s talk about defining victory. It simply does not seem reasonable that the U.S. would lose this one because of the overwhelming might of America, but victory has a political definition, right? And already that’s being talked about. Senator Tom Cotton had this to say. Let’s hear it.

TOM COTTON: Anyone who says that we're already losing or we're in a quagmire or the president can't succeed because of the threat that Iran poses to the Hormuz right now is akin to saying Eisenhower is losing because he hadn't made it to Berlin within two weeks of D-Day. It's going to take some time to achieve those military objectives, but in the end, We will have defanged the Iranian regime. Their missile forces, their drones, their missile launchers, their manufacturing capability will be ended. Their nuclear program will once again be pulverized.

Not a bad point, but I remember the number being four to five weeks, or maybe a little longer. What about you? How do you define success or victory?

BAKER: Well, the question is, if we have to actually go all in, right—major, major league troops on the ground in Iran—there is no telling how long that could last, how much it would cost, how many lives will be lost.

I think that the gambit is that we attack, as we have, Kharg Island and try to get control of sort of the hub of their oil exportation business. And the idea is, if we do that, then we choke off the revenue to the regime, and maybe if they have no resources because we have done that, maybe that forces them to come to the table. So that’s the game. We have to force them to come to the table. And if we do that, then success or victory becomes something that I could see happening.

EICHER: Well, Hunter, I did want to ask you about the counterterrorism official resigning over the war. Joe Kent is his name. He’s the highest-ranking administration official to quit over opposition to the conflict. He complained about the sway of the Israel lobby, saying that it has too much influence over American policy. He said that, as far as the U.S. is concerned, Iran posed no imminent threat.

Now, before you can say he sounds an awful lot like Tucker Carlson, The New York Times had a story saying that the two of them are close friends. I’d now like to quote a close friend of ours, WORLD Opinions writer Erick Erickson. He posted this yesterday on X, and this is a direct quote from that:

“There is a rule in conservative politics,” Erickson says, “that a man is rarely to the right of his wife. Joe Kent lost his first wife in war and remarried a woman who now works for a far-left, anti-Israel, pro-Iran website. Kent should never have been appointed to anything in the Trump administration.”

That from Erick Erickson. A lot going on here. Hunter, what do you think about all this?

BAKER: First of all, I kind of wonder about that rule in conservative politics, because there have been an awful lot of Republican presidents who I would say were to the right of their wives politically.

Nevertheless, let’s take this issue up. For a long time, the—let’s call it Israel-skeptical sort of group—has been a deep minority in Republican politics, but they have been there. Pat Buchanan has often sort of occupied that position in the Republican Party. He was able to survive being sort of Israel-skeptical in his career.

But you look at somebody else, like the former National Review writer who’s long dead now, Joe Sobran. Joe Sobran was so skeptical of Israel that he eventually lost his perch at National Review. And this viewpoint has been around with Republicans for a very long time. Sometimes they make common cause with some Democrats. And we see it coming out again.

And this group, however large it is, they are gaining some influence. And I think they’re gaining some influence with some young conservative Christians who have begun to sort of question the alliance with Israel. And so this is something that I think is becoming more prominent. I think it’s something that we’re going to hear more often, and it hurts Trump a little bit.

I think that some of these folks allied with him on the view that he would be America First and not have the appearance of doing something that Israel wants America to do for its own benefit. And so I think that this guy, Joe Kent, not necessarily all that big of a deal, but as you pointed out, he’s close to Tucker Carlson, and we may hear more of this.

MAST: Hunter, since the war with Iran started, there have been multiple attacks or attempted attacks on Americans on American soil.

MONTAGE: Investigators in Texas are looking into possible ties to terrorism in the deadly mass shooting at a bar in Austin over the weekend … Chaos at Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s house. A man tries to ignite an incendiary device during a protest, but is tackled by New York’s finest … We’re also learning more about a shooting this morning at Old Dominion University in Virginia. That shooting left one person dead, two injured. The shooter is also deceased.

Now, those three attacks are being investigated as terrorism. A fourth attempted attack at a Jewish synagogue and school in Michigan is being officially investigated as a targeted hate crime for the time being. Reports say the suspect in that case may have a brother with ties to Hezbollah.

Now, I remember a time not so long ago when any one of those would have prompted some sort of political response, maybe even a bipartisan political response, but that doesn’t seem to be happening here. Why?

BAKER: Well, these are all examples of attacks that appear to be motivated by the action that we are taking in Iran. And there are concerns, especially among the American left—and when we talk about the American left, we are including a lot of the American media in that description—who are concerned with what they would term Islamophobia.

And so they are very worried that if we draw attention to attacks that are carried out by Muslims, by radical Muslims, that they will then be participating in a sort of castigation of Muslims in general. And so they’re not going to highlight that. They’re not going to ask voters to kind of say, hmm, what’s going on here?

And the real interest that I have in this is, why is it that Islam is the concern that they have? When I read about Islamophobia, I thought about, where has their concern been with Christianophobia, or Catholicophobia, or evangelical phobia? I’ve never heard that.

But nevertheless, that’s what I think is going on. I think that the idea of running with these stories would be counter to the American media narrative, and that’s why we’re not hearing much about it.

MAST: So, Hunter, here’s my follow-up for you. As an American who likes to go places, places where other people are, it’s starting to feel less and less safe. And there was a time where I would have thought that the politicians would prioritize that. What would it take to get the attention of politicians to where some policies would either be enforced or changed, or something that I would have expected, I don’t know, say, some 24 and a half years ago, when this would not have been tolerated, but suddenly is not only tolerated, but barely even spoken about?

BAKER: I would say that on the right side of the equation, what you’re going to hear is more focus on immigration, more focus on knowing who is coming into the country, and figuring out whether there are any patterns that would tell us that there are certain people that we need to keep an eye on. Donald Trump has suggested that we do that sort of a thing. Obviously, it has not necessarily helped us in these instances.

And on the left side, the interest is going to be in gun control or something like that. But, of course, with at least one of these attacks, I think that you had these young men trying to throw improvised explosive devices, so gun control laws wouldn’t have helped us in that instance.

But the problem with this, as it is with everything for us right now, including something like the SAVE Act or any number of other potentially useful pieces of legislation that we might address, is that almost nobody is dealing with it in terms of the common good. Almost everything is being dealt with on a partisan basis, or how it will hurt the other side or help the other side, and how we can avoid doing that.

They don’t want to give the other side a win, or they don’t want to take a loss, but a lot of times that’s not the most important question at all. The most important question is, what’s good for the American people?

MAST: Well, Hunter Baker is provost at North Greenville University. Hunter, thank you so much.

BAKER: Thank you.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It… World Tour.

Preparations are underway in Haiti for its first elections in ten years.

Last week marked the deadline for registering a political party to run.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Haiti is currently wracked with gang violence, and over half of its population lives in poverty. The country has been operating with an interim government since the last president was assassinated in 2021.

Even so, some say the country isn’t ready to hold a vote.

WORLD’s Mary Muncy reports.

MARY MUNCY: Junior Luckner Buisson has lived in Haiti his whole life. He’s 33 now, and says he doesn’t trust the government to run elections. He has some good reasons.

BUISSON: We have several governments that came in different prime ministers, and different like seven Presidents, I think seven or nine we've had in the past government and they, they have not been able to do anything, any change, like nothing at all.

The current interim government is made up of the same people who were in power when former President Jovenel Moise was assassinated in 2021.

BUISSON: And I have a feeling that the people that are leading are, I mean, they they're just there because they couldn't find anyone else.

Many of them will soon be called to testify in the trial of Moise’s assassins. Jury selection started in Florida last week. Meanwhile, more than half of the population is facing food insecurity. Gangs control about 90 percent of the country’s capital, Port-au-Prince, and some reports say the violence is spreading.

BUISSON: I don't see how some people, like in different parts of the country, would be able to get to the polls.

Port-au-Prince was the economic hub of the country, but the gang problem has frustrated even the hope of economic development.

ROBERT FATTON: It's not surprising that you have violence and gangs, because that to some extent, if you are very poor, you don't have any alternative.

Robert Fatton is a Haitian and a former professor of government and foreign affairs at the University of Virginia.

The United Nations Children’s Fund estimates that about half of all gang members are children.

FATTON: Giving you know, guns and weapons to people of that age is a calamity, and even if things unfold well, you have to disarm them. Then what do you do with them? Because the trauma that exists is significant.

Any new leader will need to address these issues, or at least have a plan to.

More than 300 political parties have registered in the election. Many of them will likely not meet the requirements to be considered a party. But still, that’s a record in Haiti. In the last election, there were a little less than 200.

The government gives a stipend to political parties that’s supposed to go to things like campaign ads or visiting constituents, so Fatton suspects that this uptick may be because of some promised financial support.

FATTON: Given the level of corruption that we have in the political system, that a lot of that money is going to go to the people, or the very small group of people who form that political party.

The election is supposed to take place in August but the current Prime Minister says it may be as late as the end of the year.

FATTON: I don't think it's a very serious thing to consider elections at that point, although the current government and the international community want the elections.

Fatton worries that whenever elections do happen, no one will trust the results. He points to the last election in 2016—when President Moise came to power.

FATTON: Something like only 15% of the population participated in those elections. The results were continuously contested, and that meant that Moise himself was a very contested leader and quite an unpopular leader, although, when he was killed, his popularity with his death increased.

He says there haven’t been many stable, trustworthy elections in the country ever, but people were at least able to walk the streets, until 2010.

FATTON: With the catastrophic earthquake, things fell apart again.

Haitians had been leaving the country for years, but after the earthquake, the US granted them Temporary Protected Status. As of 2024 almost a million Haitians live in the US.

It’s unclear whether those living outside Haiti will be able to vote.

FATTON: The government has said that it would have voting stations in the United States, in Canada, in France, but I seriously doubt it, because to generate that is very complicated, and I don't think the government has the money or the logistical support to do so.

Fatton says the first step to free and fair elections will be to remove the gangs. The government plans to bring in a “gang suppression force” from Chad. But it’s tried similar tactics before without success.

FATTON: You need political stability, you need a certain degree of equity, and you need economic development. How you do that, given the current situation, is really an immense, immense task and problem for any government, even if you have the best government, the situation is dire.

Back in Haiti, Bussion is not optimistic that any of the 300 parties have the will or ability to help the country.

BUSSION: We need people to really think about the situation. You know, about what you know, what's good for the country. But they, you know, they just want you to vote. They just want…that power grab they're about to do.

For now, Bussion hopes that the elections don’t bring more chaos, even if they don’t bring the needed change.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Mary Muncy.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Politics can certainly leave a person wanting to scream.

And in at least a few American cities now, that is not just a figure of speech.

Atlanta, for instance. Pent-up people gather in Piedmont Park

AUDIO: On three, okay? One, two, three …

… gathering for a thing called Scream Club.

AUDIO: AAAAAAHHHH!

You get the picture. Simple idea: show up, take a deep breath … and let ’er rip.

Dr. Kenneth Carter—a psychology professor at Emory University—says there may actually be a method to the madness.

AUDIO: The scream can bring out a lot of that sympathetic nervous system response, but then afterwards people end up feeling a lot more calm.

Healing, maybe.

Community, maybe.

Or maybe America has finally found a way to turn losing your mind into a group activity.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Today is Wednesday, March 18th.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Lindsay Mast.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Gotta problem, Houston.

Captain Barry Butch Wilmore is a retired NASA astronaut and Navy test pilot. He's spent a considerable amount of time in space, a total of 464 days. He's done three space flights and spent 32 hours spacewalking. Most recently, he and fellow astronaut Suni Williams grabbed sensational, international headlines for their time aboard Boeing's Starliner spacecraft.

They arrived at the International Space Station on June 6th, 2024. They arrived home one year ago, March 18th, 2025.

MAST: Captain Wilmore retired from NASA a few months later after celebrating 25 years with the agency, and he's written a book about his unexpectedly long stay on the ISS. That book is called Stuck in Space. It’s available today and Captain Wilmore joins us now to talk about it.

Captain, welcome.

WILMORE: Great to be with you, Lindsay. Thank you for having me.

MAST: Thanks for being here. In the book, you mentioned that cassette tapes of John MacArthur's ministry, Grace to You, became your church for a period of time. You said you've probably listened to more than a thousand of his sermons, often while deployed. What is it about his teachings that really grabs you, and how did those messages minister to you specifically while you were in space?

WILMORE: I think you just said it, teaching. Growing up, I heard sermons preached, which there's nothing wrong with sermons. I had never heard the Bible taught. The first time I heard the Bible taught was a cassette tape that turned out to be John MacArthur. Never heard of the gentleman, and it really rocked my world. I thought I was listening to a seminary class.

And then over more tapes, I got more tapes from a friend of mine. I continued to listen thinking it was a seminary class. And then when I found out it was preaching from the pulpit, I was like, oh my goodness, I did not even know this existed. So teaching, you just said it. Preaching is great. Message from the word, from the pulpit is vital to our Christian growth. But the teaching that I started to hear there and what I've heard since has just really changed things for me.

MAST: I love this. You wrote that the headline “Astronauts assimilate” wouldn't get any clicks so the media used the word stranded. So, first of all, explain the difference between being stranded and the actual truth of the matter. And then perhaps why you chose the word stuck for your own book.

WILMORE: Yeah, well, stuck, stranded, there are definitions, there are many definitions for both of those words, many items that come to mind. And we were definitely—in some of those definitions—stuck and stranded. We were in a position where we didn't plan to be there and couldn't leave for any number of reasons. But ultimately the Lord put us there. It was Him that put us there. He placed us in the situation. He's sovereign. He's in control, and I know that. So I can't say from that standpoint it was stuck. The name of the book is that because I don't pick the name of the book. I've learned the publisher picks the name. And of course, that's the way the general public knows this situation is being stuck. And so that's why that is the title. And in the book, there's a section called stuck in space, and I go into those details of saying why that's the title, but truly, truly as believers we know there's no situation where we’re stuck even though we feel stuck. Some people feel stuck in a job, feel stuck in marriages, and other situations. But the Lord allows us to get in there and it's, again, working out His plan and His purposes for his glory and our good and hopefully that—for those that will believe—and that we will learn and grow from those situations we find ourselves in.

MAST: You know, very, very, very few humans have had the experience of looking down on Earth from space. So I want to ask, what was your “what is man that you are mindful of him” moment when you were up there? God has an even broader perspective, but how did it change yours?

WILMORE: It didn't change… I didn't need to go to space to learn anything about my Lord. His Word is all sufficient. However, you say what was my...

that moment. There wasn't a moment, there was moments all the time. Every time you look out and you see the aurora, you know how it's protecting the earth from the nasty radiation that's out in the cosmos, as the magnetic waves orient that around our planet. And this is just the visible part at the poles where the high energy electrons enter the atmosphere. And you see that and you understand that as the Lord's protection, how He designed this planet to be inhabited, as it says in Isaiah 45: 18. And so that, and just sights in general, the colors, the beauty, the variety. It's not a moment, it's moments every single day as you look and gaze from that vantage point, which you know, few people in the history of mankind have had the opportunity to view that with their own eyes. And it certainly makes you grateful, obviously, to our Savior that He gave me this desire in my heart that I was able to view the planet from that vantage point. And just, you know, maybe a little bit it just gives you that appreciation all the more that I wouldn't have had otherwise.

MAST: Last question, I'd like you to talk for a second about grit. That's loosely defined: a combination of passion and perseverance. And from the beginning of your story, you seem to have had a lot of it. I'm curious what aspects of your life you think most helped develop your sense of it. And when have you been most grateful that it was something that you developed from a young age?

WILMORE: Grit is something that I don't think it's something you wake up with, it's something that is learned over time. And that's something about, it's in this book, you can see if you read the book, Stuck in Space, it goes through some of those details where I learned the grittiness of life to knuckle down and go forward. And be that, you know, that work-like-a-mule mentality because I learned it many times the hard way. And just real quick, since I talked about the book, I mean, the reason I wrote the book was for my daughters. My wife and I had our daughters, we were in our forties, we lived a life before they were born. So I wrote it with a purpose for them. I'd started actually before the Starliner, wrote some chapters, but I continued it. So that's the reason I wrote it. The reason I published it is because I think it tells this message of grit.

We all have to deal with life. Life is tough in many instances. And I think it will be an encouragement for people in the now to deal with life that we have to deal with. But beyond that, we also must be aware of the eternal everlasting aspects of our existence. And that's where Jesus Christ our Lord comes in. He comes in every day dealing with life. That grit as you're talking about is something that's a blessing from Him.

But that also points us to the eternal aspect. So dealing with life now, an encouragement there in the perspective of dealing with life now, as well as focusing on our eternal existence. And that only comes successfully, eternal hope through Jesus Christ our Lord. And the wrath he incurred from the Father on the cross as He paid the price for our sins. So that's why I wrote the book. I wrote it for my daughters. I published it for the glory of God.

MAST: Well, the book is called Stuck in Space. It is out now. And Captain Wilmore, thank you so much for your time.

WILMORE: Thank you. My pleasure being with you, Lindsay. Thank you.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast. Questions about work, purpose, and risk can sound abstract—until they show up in the story of a life. Here’s WORLD commentator Janie B. Cheaney.

JANIE B. CHEANEY: For most of his life, my husband was a risk-taker.

At the age of 19, after a summer job fell through, he decided to hitchhike from mid-Missouri to Montreal, Canada.

For the next three summers during his undergrad years, he sold Bible reference books door to door.

We met while he was in grad school, and for the next two years of college his restless spirit took us to opposite ends of the country for temporary summer jobs. Then he followed his dream of steam locomotives to New Mexico, where he hung around the tracks of a tourist railroad until they hired him.

Even after landing a reasonably secure corporate job at the age of 32, he wasn’t afraid to quit 13 years later and start his own business.

Don’t get me wrong; there’s a lot to be said for steady employment with one company. Doug and I shared some anxious months between jobs that he might have been a little too quick to walk away from. But every new start promised excitement and adventure. And every job he held served the public in some way, contributing to the general good and to his own satisfaction.

In his fifties, Doug gravitated to doom-casting, alarmed by fear of economic collapse. We should cut back on expenses, he said; make do with less.

Or, I thought, why not work to make more money?

At the point where he would either have to expand his business or retire early, he chose the latter. I don’t blame him, but the lack of structure and purpose that work provided may have led to a broader lack, as he gradually retired from planned projects, social life, even church. I suspect the inactivity hastened and intensified his dementia.

In his book Full Time: Work and the Meaning of Life, David Bahnsen explains how America’s producer-driven, risk-positive economy created a level of wealth, comfort, and longevity the world had never known. But there, at the height of our game, Keynesian economics shifted us to a consumer-driven model, where demand creates supply rather than the other way around. Swapping producers for consumers doesn’t just devalue work; it also devalues people.

In 1990 the Hoover Institution released a five-part series featuring supply-sider Milton Friedman. Episode one was introduced by none other than Arnold Schwarzenegger, who shared why he moved to America:

SCHWARTZENEGGER: Because I came from a socialistic country, where the government controls the economy. It’s a place where you can hear 18-year-old kids already talking about their pensions. But me, I wanted more. I wanted to be the best. Individualism like that is incompatible with socialism. So I felt I had to come to America.

You don’t have to have a Schwarzenegger-size ambition to pity eighteen-year-olds dreaming of retirement. In a socialist country they weren’t encouraged to see themselves as productive citizens, much less risk-takers.

American teenagers in a consumerist society don’t fare much better if they’re continually scrolling bad news and bad advice from social-media influencers.

Moving to a house on the beach with no deadlines and no pressure has its appeal for someone way past retirement age, like me. But I’m not retiring anytime soon – or ever, if I can help it. It’s a bit like stepping out on a high wire when I attempt to shape words into useful thoughts, not always successfully. But adventure and satisfaction are right here, in front of my keyboard.

I’m Janie B. Cheaney.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Tomorrow: A new pro-life strategy for confronting chemical abortion has an environmental twist. We’ll have a report. And, a jazz great leaves his gospel mark. 

That and more tomorrow. I’m Lindsay Mast.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio. WORLD’s mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Bible records the parable of the Good Samaritan … we meet him after the priest and the Levite pretend not to see a man who’d been beaten and robbed. Jesus says:

“But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’

“‘Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?’ [The lawyer] said, ‘The one who showed him mercy.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘You go, and do likewise.’” —Luke 10:33-37

Go now in grace and peace.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.