Things Look Different From Up Here

GUEST BLOGGER: Karen Greenwood

Three thousand feet above Connecticut’s coastline yields an interesting perspective. It’s where I found myself the Sunday before Labor Day, in the passenger seat of an unnervingly small, single-engine  Pieper airplane. Yes, the kind that feels more like a tin can than an aircraft. 

It was perfect flying weather: blue skies, gentle winds, great sight lines. It was just the morning my husband and his pilot friend, Alex, had been waiting for to take me on my first flight in a “little plane.”

I’m not a great flyer. I’ve adjusted to big commercial planes, where there’s less turbulence and movies and snacks to distract me. The tin cans? Not something I ever thought I could handle. No point in praying for courage. It just wasn’t going to happen.

Then something changed. My husband and son were flying around with Alex, island hopping, tracing the path of the Hudson River into NYC. Their adventures sounded amazing. I wanted to go. Alex is a terrific pilot. My husband would be with me. I asked God for strength.

Our destination was Block Island, a quick 35-minute hop from New Haven’s Tweed. We took off early in the morning, and our route took us  over Long Island Sound, skimming the Connecticut coastline, before heading into Rhode Island. 

I climbed onto the wing to board and hesitated, just an instant, before stepping down into my seat. I said a prayer in my head, but it occurred to me that it wasn’t so much courage that I needed. It was trust. Did I believe God was with me, really and truly, down in my bones? Yes. Then get in the plane. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen. He will be with you.

Take-off was fine—that first instant of buoyancy, when you’ve left the ground and only the engines—and the mechanic who is hopefully maintaining them—are keeping you aloft. 

As we climbed higher, I struck what I jokingly call my “frozen squirrel” pose. Have you ever watched a squirrel at the instant when something scares it? They don’t run off immediately or rush up a tree. They freeze, mutely staring, trying to assess the danger.

There was nowhere to run on the plane, so I just held the freeze for a number of minutes. I must have looked ridiculous.

Alex pretended not to notice. He was a God-send. Patient and reassuring, he explained exactly what he, and the plane, were doing and why. There is nothing to fear. And I thought, God does this, too. He lets us know—sometimes not as quickly or as plainly as we’d like—what he’s doing in our lives. He’s got ways of talking us through things. The problem is that we’re not always good listeners.

As we reached our cruising altitude of 3,000 feet, I felt myself loosening up, relaxing. The seaside estates of Guilford and Madison appeared, the Thimble Islands, Fisher’s Island. All this incredibly expensive real estate—really just strips of land, chunks of boulders, plunked down in an endless sea.

A quiet simplicity was coming to me, high above all the human turmoil that brews down below. I felt a nudge: Offer compassion and forgiveness to those who have offended you. What they think or believe or understand doesn’t matter. Do as God would have you do and move on. The rest will fall away. It’s not important.

I’ll try.

I began to even feel comfortable. I turned my head to look out the windows. The sea below really was beautiful, smooth and expansive, dotted with small boats, stretching away into the horizon.

What an interesting snapshot we must have made at that moment: The vast sea, the jumbled rocks sticking up out of it, my husband’s hands resting on my shoulders, the frozen squirrel slowly fading. And Alex at the controls, talking me through, step-by-step. “I’m lowering the flaps to slow the plane down. You’re going to notice a dip. It’s normal to feel these things.”

Block Island’s tiny airstrip loomed as we descended. I felt a sudden dip. No big deal. We landed without a hitch. My heart rose with joy and relief.  He knows what He’s doing.