Destination Unknown: The Spirituality Of Lift

At first, flying, to me, was so concrete, apparent, so kinetic, a skill to be learned, practiced and perfected, a great confidence-builder. It was so much fun. To fly an airplane, to master the equipment, to travel above it all to far-flung destinations---some too difficult by ground---to be apart, above the rest. I felt superior. Bigger. Flying made me special.

My airborne journey became commercial, took me into more advanced aircraft, flying around the U.S. and finally overseas. Then, suddenly, one day flying took me past the machine, past the concrete.

My journey suddenly changed. It changed for me forever while flying a Pilatus Turbo Porter. It changed with a glance down from 6000 feet over south-central Sudan. It changed in the early morning as a new day was born.

The sky was clear and the air was smooth, the rising sun behind me casting soft and golden sunlight, illuminating the way ahead, throwing long shadows across the arid, tan monochromatic Sudanese plain. The Africa of elephants, lions, giraffes, green tropics, Maasai warriors, billowing grasslands of the Serengeti---all out of sight well over the southern horizon. But in my little world of the Porter's left seat, all was well, on course, gauges green, ETA well ahead of the equatorial sun's pending metamorphosis from golden paintbrush to raging blowtorch. Flying had become second nature. And so my mind wandered.

I glanced down through the Plexiglas bottom of the crew door and saw a small Sudanese village---not on any charts, but there nonetheless---etched, small and alone, on the central clay plains of the Jazirah. Its presence was pronounced with shape and shadow in the golden light, form out of featureless desert, thin wispy game trails, like a spider web spun with feet and hooves to a center of dots and a few squares, tan huts and walled structures made from the very ground they sat on. Geometry against the monolithic tan of the central plain, appearing like a work of abstract art, really.

That short random glance from the plane transported me, in an instant, to a different reality, an express delivery by air unlike any other, of a profoundly different point of view.

Considering that miniscule and tenuous pocket of life changed my entire perspective on life. I saw not the village---so tangible to the eye---but rather a deeper implicit intangible meaning. I saw a lone colony of life etched in the arid petri dish of the Jazirah. This small village, no different in the scheme of things, really, than Las Vegas or New York or the Great Wall of China, all evidence of infinitesimal microbial activity.

From just over a mile above, I looked down and caught a glimpse of the true scale of the cosmos. Just a few thousand feet up changed my entire perspective on life. I wasn't just looking---I was beginning to see. Learning to fly wasn't just a skill learned for me; it was a ticket to ride, a profound gift, a rare window with a better view. From that moment on, the higher I flew, the smaller and safer I felt. Earthbound struggles---traffic, bills, conflicts---all those transient problems, worries that can dominate a day, ruin a sleep or foster hasty and bad decisions, all became miniscule from my perch in the pilot's seat. My life's course line made a hard right, veering away from the small stuff toward something bigger, more mysterious, toward serenity born of wonder, with a sense of awe at the immensity and completeness of the universe.

Awe became the mother of humility, and with humility came an innate calmness. This, the fabulous gift of an eagle's perspective, glimpsing the true scale beyond our normal perspective, became my most precious flying lesson finally learned.

Oh, I still have trouble with traffic---on the street, in the pattern and in the checkout line at the store. I'm workin' on it, mostly with a smile.

Lou Churchville is a commercial pilot, writer and marketing communications professional. He holds single and multi-engine land, instrument, glider and Certified Flight Instructor ratings.