What friendly skies?

I am not a good flier.

Tonight we were at the airport picking up our daughter who had spent two weeks in Singapore and Thailand. Walking into an airport raises my pulse rate. Most folks' spiritual lives come and go in peaks and valleys. If I am in a plane, my spiritual life is at a peak. Walking into an airport tenses my stomach ( not my abs - in which case I would spend hours going into and out of airports - but my stomach).

Friends trying to be helpful have reminded me that planes are safe, the pilot wants to get home in one piece too, more accidents happen in cars...I've heard it all. They who remind me that God has my days counted are doing me no favors. I start to wonder how high God can count along with other nonsensical musings.

So why do I do it? Why do I fly?

Beats me!

Well, no it doesn't really. At some point in my life I decided that if I was not going to fly, and certainly it was a choice, then my options for certain tours and vacations and mission trips would be severely curtailed. Either I had to come to peace with traveling by car, rail or heaven forbid, foot, to get places I felt safe or I had to suck it up and take to the skies...notice I didn't say 'take to the heavens' which would open up a whole other train of thoughts.

I count the take off and landings, hoping for an even number. Ten take offs and landings will get me to Ukraine. Six will get me to Haiti. The same number will get me back home. As my plane comes in for a landing and I can see the tops of buildings I start to feel safe, as if falling to earth from a thousand feet in the air is less hurtful than falling from 30,000.

I never promised you that my thoughts on this blog would be rational.
But that's what I think about it.