Flying

 

I love flying. I always have.

I sit on the plane waiting to take off, usually reading a book or chatting with my travel companion if I have one. But as soon as the plane starts moving, my face is glued to the window and everything else around me fades in the background. I stare out, fascinated as this huge chunk of metal I’m in defies gravity and seemingly starts to float through the air. I watch the cars turn to ants and the houses turn to pebbles as the city begins to disappear beneath me. The earth morphs into a patchwork quilt of different shades of greens and browns with roads and highways cutting across the middle of it, until it’s no longer visible and we become engulfed by wispy white clouds.

Or when I’m flying at night and the plane delves into a midnight sea speckled with stars that seem so close I could reach out and grab them. The only indication of cities passing below is the sporadic clusters of yellow and orange lights so distant they seem to be coming from one single source.

 

“Do you think this is how the world looks to God?”

 

I was 6. On my first plane ride, traveling to Disney World. And as I stared out the window into the night sky I asked my mom if she thought that this is how God sees the world. From a bird’s eye view. From the view of a young girl on plane traveling from Fort Wayne, IN to Orlando. I still think about that every time I’m on a plane. Because if it is, He has got one hell of a view.

Then seat belt light illuminates with a ding, and I’m pulled back into reality. I get overcome with an anxiousness to get off the plane and explore wherever I’ve landed.

 

love always,

 

sj