Taking Flight: A Letter to the Skybound

I used to be afraid of flights. I would close my eyes and grab a hand. Would count down minutes until the ordeal was over. And when I landed, I would have lucid nightmares of myself flying through the clouds, alone, like a bird, with no protection against the elements. 

Then something shifted — I do not remember when — and I began to enjoy the sensation. The feeling of being lifted up, up, up, into an ever-expanding sky. The thrill of floating in mid-air, an indescribable distance between the ground and nothingness. And below, especially on night flights, I would fix my gaze on the little toy cars, mesmerized by the way they meandered through beautifully lit roads, still visible despite the light pollution that surrounds Jozi. Are these really cars? I would think to myself. These tiny, moving toys. 

Every person inside those miniature cars, both good and bad, beautiful and ugly, was as small as living figurines, moving along with the motions of life. The landscape, stretching into oblivion, was filled with tens of thousands of these figurines — black, white, and every shade in between — neatly filed into thousands of moving toy cars. 

The plane continues to ascend, nose up, pointed towards the sky, tail down, pointing towards the night. Orion the Hunter and Taurus, Leo, and Pleiades look just as far away as they have always been, and yet, below me, the toy cars and their figurines become specks, become cells, become smaller than atoms, become nothing at all. 

Life in Perspective 

“Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? 
For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.” 
James 4:14 ESV

Being on a flight helps me remember: how small I am, how little my fears are, how insignificant the material things we all fight for are, how little the colour of my skin and the language I can — or cannot — speak matters in the grand scheme of things. 

Up there in the sky, there is little difference between a fancy Mercedes and a plain Toyota. At some thousand feet, all the nuanced colours merge into a dull silver-grey. Only the cerulean blue of large bodies of water and the verdant green of vegetation remain. 

On the plane, what little money I have chosen to bring on board can only buy me so much. A can of soda. Two slices of a plain-tasting sandwich. A small snack. Every one of my fellow travellers, rich or poor, is limited to the same few varieties. Our phones, whether plain or fancy, are also limited in their use. They are stuck in airplane mode, unable to make calls or stream movies.

The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that real life is more similar to time on a plane than time on level ground. This is why I think the birds have a better perspective than we do. As they fly, suspended in the air, they are free to see the true meaninglessness of the visible world. Maybe we ought to learn a thing or two from them. 

“As we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” 
2 Corinthians 4:18 ESV

Take Flight, Dear Friend

“But they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
they shall walk and not faint.” 
Isaiah 40:31 ESV

One of the first lessons I learnt back when I was still petrified on plane rides was that relinquishing power and control to someone I cannot see is, at first, a fearful thing before it becomes true freedom. 

Not once that I can remember have I seen the pilots who have flown me to my different destinations. But I have had to trust all of them. That was about all I could do as I travelled suspended in thin air. It was either I trusted my pilot or I spent the entire journey in palpitating fear. So I learnt to trust that each of them knew what they were doing as they steered the plane through a pathless sky. I trusted that they would bring me to my promised destination safely. It was only then that my fear started to give way. 

 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, 
thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.
Jeremiah 29:11 KJV

God is the pilot of our lives, and we are all on a journey from an origin to a destination. Most times, we are unsure of our bearings, especially as TCKs. Only the Pilot knows the way from the beginning to the end. When we fully relinquish our control to God and learn to trust Him, we are freer to enjoy the beauties of the seasons and the journey that He brings us through. We start to see things from His perspective; how little our trifles and obsessions are. Those things that keep us stranded to the ground — our material desires and aspirations, our pride and fears — begin to lose their weight until we are free enough to fly. 

Our Infinitely Big God

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
Isaiah 55:8–9 ESV

I visited a digital dome last week for a show on space and the universe, and watched in awe as the astrophysicist spoke about the constellations (the ancient Greeks had such absurd imaginations!). Then we moved on for a closer look at the other planets. Jupiter, the largest, can fit all the other seven in less than half of its volume. About three Earths would fit just into its Great Red Spot. I was already mesmerized by how small we were before we moved further out, above the Milky Way, and then beyond it. 

Trillions of galaxies spanning nearly a hundred billion light-years make up our observable universe. Who knows what lies beyond it. And yet, the earth is the only inhabitable speck among them all. 

What a Creator! 

How infinitely wise and big and strong! How powerful to make so much out of nothing! 

“By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.” 
Hebrews 11:3 ESV

This God is the one who pilots our lives. He is calling us to fly above with Him. To live in a way that makes little of what seems so big here on the ground. To see nations and tribes and tongues through His eyes. He is calling us to live with His perspective. 

Will you climb on board with me?