The klaxon rang loudly across the flight line at the U.S. Air
Force Base, located some miles south of the North Pole. At this air defense operation, well north of
the radar net that is the Defense Early Warning system protecting North
America, our job was to protect the North
American Continent while our citizens were sleeping soundly, or going about
their daily routines, unaware that we were even there, or of our mission.
On this dark and frigid day, the alert came through our radio
speakers loudly… Red Alert.. Red Alert.. Scramble Red.
As an
air traffic controller realizing that dense ice fog clung to the ground,
visibility and ceiling were below legal landing “minimums, my heart began to race. The young fighter pilots did not have a
choice, they had to go, the country was depending on them.
As the alert hanger doors opened and the 2 F102’s interceptor
aircraft, Razor Red One and Two, began
to taxi, the lead pilot, voice stressed, yelled into the microphone that he
couldn’t see anything, outside of the cockpit canopy. He was led out to the runway by a Follow Me
truck and the two jets made their turn, hopefully to line up with the
long runway, then lit off the afterburners, pushed throttles completely forward,
and streaked down the runway through the ice fog and darkness, climbing to
meet the intruders.
At this northern most air base, the nighttime and total
darkness lasts for many months and these pilots, depending on their ability to precisely
follow their instruments and on the skills of the controllers, those calm voices
guiding them, took off and climbed out.
Thinking back to that day recently, it reminded me of another early experience. Two years before the far north incident, stationed
at an air base in Mississippi, situated just a few blocks from the U.S. Gulf
Coast, we received reports of an approaching hurricane.
The base aircraft were all ordered
to leave immediately and to fly to a safer location hundreds of miles north of the
coast. As I watched them take them depart I was amazed at their rate of climb.
The winds had already picked up to about 60 mph and as the aircraft took off into the
wind they climbed almost vertically, not nose up but just being lifted vertically
by the force of the headwind, as if they were on an invisible elevator.
Also noticeable was
that as their landing gear left the runway,their last contact with earth, and
the gear retracted into the fuselage, they climbed even higher, faster.
As I left the base that day and went home to await the storm in
a very small mobile home in a trailer park that an "airman last class" could afford, very close to the coast, I learned more about
demonstrating courage and overcoming gloom and darkness. Most of the airmen on base were protected in
the concrete barracks but I lived
off-base with my wife and we had nowhere else to go.
Through the hurricane, which devastated a lot of the coastal
area, my
wife and I clung to each other, praying, as the mobile home shook and
rattled on its flimsy foundation. We
made it safely through and felt God’s presence throughout the storm.
All of these experiences have been so helpful to me in relating them to how God provides protection and uplift in times of gloom and doom. They help us better
understand God and our protection, in proving that we can trust more and be
less frightened by conditions outside of our control.
Here’s a summary of what I have learned.
· That God,
the Creator, our Father, as described in the Bible by Christ Jesus, is a very
present help in trouble. That God is Spirit,
not material, not a human form sitting somewhere in space, but the essence of Spirit,
unseen perhaps, but FELT by everyone who turns away from material sense of
existence to seek the spiritual reality. (God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. (John 4:24)
· That we can listen to the quiet voice of the
controller for takeoff, climb and a safe landing. Turning to God, that still small voice that
calmly guides us through the fog of materiality, giving a clear signal when the
outside noises of matter are silenced, is a safe navigation aid. (And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the
way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn
to the left. (Isaiah 30 :21))
· That we can face headwinds of trouble; lack
of finance, love and understanding; illness, fear, sin and death because the
once frightening headwinds put lift in our wings and help us climb higher
spiritually. Those winds are an earthly phenomena, but God is
Spirit, Love, untouched by matter and the whirlwind of mortal reasoning. (¶ Trust in the Lord with
all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. (Proverbs 3:5))
·
That when our
landing gear comes off the runway, when
we turn loose of that last contact with earthly thinking, stop clinging desperately to a
material sense of life, and reach out to
fly higher spiritually, we are lifted up even faster, higher. As we release our tight hold on a material
sense of life and existence, we begin to soar into an atmosphere of thought
where fog dissipates and the sunshine of clear thinking reveals our true sense
of life.
We can rejoice in our inevitable growth spiritward, to understand
our own true identity as “the image and likeness” of God, knowing that we are
not separate from God, but that …in him we live, and move, and have our
being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are
also his offspring. (Acts 17:28) as the
Apostle Paul observed.
We don’t have to go somewhere else, at some other time
or to some other place to be God’s image and likeness, we are there NOW. Safe, Guided, Serene.
I love a poem written by John Greenleaf Whittier contained as
a hymn in the Christian Science Hymnal.
It often helps me clear my thought in times when I seem to be flying “on
instruments”, almost written for a pilot or air traffic controller, or anyone
who feels that they are flying blind in the face of earth’s storms.
Just for a moment, please sit with me here in
the cockpit with those courageous young fighter pilots as we race down life’s runway, and
sing with them:
Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling
gloom,
Lead Thou me on;
The night is dark, and I am far from home,
Lead Thou me on.
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to
see
The distant scene; one step enough for me.
So long
Thy power hath blest me, sure it still
Will lead
me on
O’er moor
and fen, o’er crag and torrent, till
The night
is gone,
And with
the morn those angel faces smile,
Which I
have loved long since, and lost awhile.
Safe flight and happy landings. God is whispering in your ear... "Life is eternal, TRUST ME!!!"
