Altitude

3o,ooo + feet to be exact. No, I'm not there at the moment, but I was yesterday, winging it from the Mediterranean like climate of the NW corner, back to gray, cloudy, snow covered Ohio. What follows was written from altitude. In my journal. With a pen!

My life can be defined by landmarks. The Olympics, Long's Peak, Lake Erie. Just another day in the big blue yonder. Plane travel is truly a marvel. It is moving me from the hug of my Dad in drizzly Seattle to the hopefully semi cleared driveway and the possible hug of my tall man-boy son in Ohio. All in the course of 8 hours. A marvel.

The downside of air travel for me is the fact that my emotions can lag behind. My body ends up in a new location while my heart languishes in some NW garden plot overlooking Puget Sound. It will catch up with me as it always does. But it is not always easy.

I want to be able to articulate my own 'theology of travel' which is what I call it for now. I'm not quite sure what it will end up to be, but something along those lines. How is it that Jesus goes ahead of me and meets me at my destination while at the same time he settles right beside me in the airliner? Another marvel. Since Jesus is not bound by time or space or any earthly thing, all is possible. (I love that mystery!) He shows me how to look upon the landscape below and its inhabitants with his bird's eye view. Another post, another time.

I love that He is intimately acquainted with my traveling companions today, though they may or may not have any awareness of that reality.

.... the semi frazzled mom sitting in my row with her toddler on her lap and her five year old in between us. I was happy to help the chatty little girl with the pink pony ("Do you like my pony?") from spilling her drink and losing her hairbrush and forgetting to buckle her seat belt. Better to have a seasoned mom in the same row that the tattooed 20 something sleeping male who sat beside me on the next flight. I ended up being a little gift from God to that mom whether she would notice or not. I'm glad.

....the frail elderly couple I helped on the plane last week as they were en route to San Diego to see their son. They were back on my flight today! Go figure. I was relieved to see that they survived the whole trip.

....the other older couple, she traveling in a wheel chair and being well cared for by the airline employees. This will be me and Mom in three weeks, so I NOTICED where I might not have before. Nice to see some personal care from those who push wheel chairs day in and day out.

.... all the TALL GIRLS who were heading for the same gate. I figured it must be a college basketball team. I was right once I saw the matching backpacks with athletic shoes dangling from the bottom. Young and gorgeous, heading for New Orleans. I hope they won.

....and all the rest.

Seeing one's fellow travelers from the perspective of a God who knows them all and loves them just the same fuels compassion. It makes travels even more interesting than they already are. I guess that qualifies as a beginning on my theology of travel. More flights are already booked and more yet to come.

Tonight, however, I sleep in my own bed at the altitude of 1,200 ft. This too is good.