Miracles Above
In an airport again today and I’m struck by how at ease I feel in this environment. It has become a routine to me so much that I hardly notice the packing, drive, goodbyes, check-in, security, coffee, headphones, boarding, and buckle motions anymore. But then the plane engines roar, and I’m reminded that this is not a simple thing.
We have giant metal machines that fight gravity on our behalf and make it look effortless to vault hundreds of people up 35,000+ feet in the air at speeds of 500 mph and put us back on the ground safely in a new place on the other side of this planet. What a time to be alive, as we say.
I never want to take for granted this miracle of flight that can close the distances between us.
On the ground, it is ordered chaos, currents of people moving with purpose. The bustle is addicting and colorful like NYC streets at dusk. I smile at both the moments of grumpiness and of kindness. We rush, believing we are separate, but in the end, we always rise and arrive together. Suspended in the skies, we slow so well and let time have its way.
I consider all the stories that each cabin contains. We head to our conferences, our vacations, our weddings, our funerals, our homes, and our adventures. To places & people. To foreign & familiar. We sit in rows weighted down with expectation, weariness, joy, forced patience, heartbreak, boredom, whatever — while we are in fact soaring weightless above the clouds, closer to the burning stars.
I notice the shapes below, and I think of the people there too. I think about how I am sometimes that grounded person staring up at the tiny faraway plane. From opposite viewpoints, we can still sense the same reality. We are a small part of something big.
I love thinking about all the people God loves besides me. The person next to me may be a complete mystery, but they are intimately known and pursued by the same great love. We may be strangers rebounding off one another in shared spaces, but we are connected. We are each a one-time event in the universe and all our movements are of great concern to Him. And that is more than enough.