Life Flight

Life is like a good air­line flight (yes, I am a per­son that lives in the world of spir­i­tual metaphors). It begins with some inten­sity, and for the first half it is an amaz­ing rush toward the open sky. There is a sense of power and exhil­a­ra­tion. Every­thing is new (you never for­get your first flight). Your eyes are fixed for­ward, and for a while you feel like a young god.

After the ini­tial ascent, you set­tle into notic­ing the things in the air­craft. The stew­ardess looks pretty cute. You are young. The smell of the new plas­tic in the plane reminds you of that sports car you once tried out in high school. Life holds a lot promises and you can hardly wait to get into them.

When the plane reaches cruis­ing alti­tude, you notice the other pas­sen­gers a bit more. There is quite a vari­ety of peo­ple sit­ting around you. Your job is to sit still and coop­er­ate with the oth­ers that are in the same cir­cum­stance. This too is a great life-metaphor les­son on the flight. You gaze out of the win­dow at that won­der­ful world below; you feel invincible.

Even­tu­ally the nose of the plane dips down, the engines are throt­tled back, and the descent begins. It is a sad sort of feel­ing at first, but you real­ize that you are grow­ing tired of the flight. Per­son­ally, the nose of my plane has been in the descent mode for sev­eral years. It is a lit­tle eas­ier. There is a sense of glid­ing the rest of the way — even though the engines are still work­ing hard. The cup of cof­fee in the hand of the stew­ardess looks a lit­tle bet­ter than the stew­ardess now. The flight still has a ways to go.

I just hope that when my plane touches down that it is a gen­tle land­ing. When the plane eases to the ter­mi­nal with me in a pine box, I hope the ride is smooth. By all logic, the ter­mi­na­tion of the life flight is at the ter­mi­nal — the end. From take­off to land­ing, life is a trip. I hear the next flight does not end. It begins with an ascen­sion that does not require engines or wings. I am already look­ing for­ward to it. See you there!