34,000 Feet

No mat­ter how tired I am, no mat­ter how crowded the air­plane, no mat­ter how rough the flight, I always find it to be the best way to regain my per­spec­tive. Look­ing down from 34,000 feet, you real­ize how small we all really are. The clouds seen from above are much pret­tier. They are pris­tine. The sky goes on for­ever. The air is crisp. View­ing the moon at that alti­tude tugs at your heart stings of won­der and humil­ity. We are so small. With the Psalmist, we have to won­der “What are we that God is mind­ful of us?”

To fly is to be depen­dent on tech­nol­ogy at its best, but I have never had any fear asso­ci­ated with it. I know the sta­tis­tics. You would have to fly every­day for two-thousand years to be in an air­craft inci­dent. You would have to fly every­day for four-thousand years to be in a fatal plane crash. You can­not say that about your car, your motor­cy­cle, your bicy­cle, or even walk­ing. Life on the ground is far more dan­ger­ous than life in the air.

Look­ing down at snow­capped moun­tains is very dif­fer­ent than look­ing up at them. They are beau­ti­ful but not so omi­nous when you are four of five miles above them. Roads are but threads — fields but patch­work quilts. Mighty rivers look lit­tle trick­les in your flowerbed. You see how small it all really is down there, and your wor­ries begin to fade into a dis­tant echo. This thing called “life” is so great that it must surely be an insult to it to worry or com­plain. Pet­ti­ness must be indica­tive of a pro­found loss of perspective.

So, if you find me in a very con­tented mood, it is because I am still off in some cloud some­where. No won­der Jesus used birds as exam­ples of crea­tures that do not worry. They are above it all often enough to sense the big­ger pic­ture. I want to be more like them.