Flying

I am not an infrequent flier. Many, many times now, I have leaned back in my seat and felt gravity push against my chest as we climb. Still, at every take-off, I feel my heart thumping fiercely in protest as it rises and drops.

To ease my mind, I imagine different sources of help, and I pray.

I picture God's hand (the God that is a child, seriously playful) zooooooooming us down the runway in our toy plane and woooooshing us up in the air, lips buzzing with all the proper sound effects.

I envision us being lifted into the air by waves of love and well-wishes, waves carried with each passenger from loved ones near and far. Pooled together, what power they must have! Certainly enough to lift a plane up safely.

All this, I realize, to avoid the truth that when I stepped onto the plan I gathered my life up in my arms, like my coat or some more precious bundle, and handed it over to pilots and mechanics and countless others. I am, coatless and shivering, at their mercy.

And it is only rarely, as we reach cruising altitude, that I allow myself the deeper truth. It was never my bundle to give away, not really. Walking or flying, we are always tethered or held aloft, always, by the web of life that threatens and sustains us, that makes us vulnerable, makes us human. We are at... and in... its mercy.

No promises. Only the reality of our naked connectedness.

And just as I realize that we are not only coatless but may as well be flying in the nude, for all the control we (n)ever have... we arrive. We collect our coats and shrug them on, and we step out into the sun, blinking and grateful.