Year of Mercy Reflection

Friday, Aug. 12, 2016

I was 25 years old, handsome, and fit. I was walking across the tarmac, helmet in hand, wearing my fireproof flight suit and my very cool g-suit. 

It was spring, generally sunny, 68 degrees, and just a bit of overcast clouds at 150 feet. I was young, alive, and about to strap on two jet engines with 3,000 pounds of afterburner thrust each and hurl myself into the wild blue. 

There, up ahead at the jet, my crew chief awaited the arrival of his pilot. The only thing better than being a pilot was having an audience watch me be a pilot. 

Strap in. Engine start. Taxi. Clearance. Hit the afterburners. Feel the kick! And here we are slipping the surly bonds! Clouds below me now and another layer of clouds just about 100 feet above. 

Something’s not right. 

Speed was increasing. Engines felt good. The acceleration of takeoff still gave me a feeling of ascending. But a quick scan of the cockpit instruments showed me at 100 feet and descending. Not good.

With only clouds below me and no clear horizon in the distance, I had been unconsciously aligning my climb based on the underside of the clouds above me. And they were sloping. The wrong way. It was certain in this terrain that the clouds beneath me concealed mountains.

Seconds from a fiery death, I finally paid attention to my cockpit instruments and my training, and safely ascended.

Somewhere about the time I broke into the sunlight, I thanked God for the books and people who taught me to fly. They taught me how to know when to ignore what you see. They taught me to search for the unseen and unnoticed. 

Now, 64, I think I’d have to be pretty cocky not to appreciate the Scriptures and the Church that God placed here for similar reasons.

Charles Vono

St. James the Just Parish