Jesus on the Plane

Don Henley's 1989 Album "The End of the Innocence" had a song called "If Dirt Were Dollars." One of the lines is "I was flyin' back from Lubbock, I saw Jesus on the plane." I was never quite sure what his point was there, but I know this . . . I was flying back from somewhere and I did see Jesus on the plane. At least I saw Him working through the tenderness of a fellow passenger.

As I was sitting on the airplane, people were boarding and we were getting ready to leave. The last two people to board were an older man, perhaps fifty five, and a teenage boy. The man was behind the young man, and had his arms around the boys chest. He was struggling, face red, teeth gritting, sweat popping out on his forehead, trying to carry the boy into the plane. The young man was obviously paralyzed from the waist down, and had very little control from the waist up. Sweating profusely now, the man hoisted the boy onto the plane and just passing me, he put the young man in the seat behind me. He didn’t just dump him into the seat, mind you. He set him there, gently. There was value in the man’s attitude toward the boy. Something deep.

The plane was one of those little commuter jobs, one seat on my side of the plane and two seats on the other, perhaps six rows like that. Holding the boy in place, the man put the seat belt around his waist, then put a second belt, which he carried with him, around the boy’s chest and the seat so his fragile body wouldn’t slump over. The last thing the man did, after taking his seat just across the aisle, was to reach out and take his son's hand and hold it as we raced down the runway.

During the flight, we hit some rough weather a couple of times. The plane was tossed back and forth, up and down. Those little commuters tend to be shaken much easier than the big planes. It was during some of the roughest moments, the boy behind me lost his stomach and threw up. Calmly, and with a tenderness born of love, the man gently spoke to his son, as he wiped the mess from his face and clothes.

“Are you alright, son?”

A garbled, “Ahh . . .” escaped the lips of the boy.

“Don’t worry. It’s O.K.”

The stewardess brought some wet towels back and attempted to clean up the mess, but, with a smile of thanks, the man took them from her. He proceeded to wipe his boy’s face and clothes, then the chair and floor. With something bordering on spiritual humility, he handed the cloths back to the stewardess, and calmly took his seat.

The turbulence continued and in a short time the episode was repeated. It was like watching an instant replay on some sports show. The man was just as loving and tender the second time as he was the first. His attitude of love never wavered even though, I am guessing, he went through these kinds of things day after day. I’m not a particularly emotional man, but my eyes filled with tears.

I have no idea who that man was (No. Wait a minute, it was Jesus.). I only know he was a great man, and he taught me something about love and faith that day and changed my life, if only just a little bit. I may never see him again, but I’ll remember him always. In fact, I must never forget.

Another Favorite Poem

The Convert

After one moment when I bowed my head
And the whole world turned over and came upright,
And I came out where the old road shone white,
I walked the ways and heard what all men said . . .
Forests of tongues, like autumn leaves unshed,
Being not unlovable but strange and light;
Old riddles and new creeds, not in despite
But softly, as men smile about the dead.
The sages have a hundred maps to give
They trace their crawling cosmos like a tree,
They rattle out reason through many a sieve
That stores the sand and lets the gold go free:
And all these things are less than dust to me
Because my name is Lazarus and I live.

G.K. Chesterton

Out, Out Brief Candle

A fine man, a generous heart, and a friend just died. He was aged. We expect old people to die. This is how life is. We are born; we grow up; we get old; we die. I have some other friends who lost a child. He was a little over a week old. An odd twist of fate caused his death. This we do not expect. This we mourn over. This hurts . . . perhaps for as long as we live. We struggle with questions when such things occur. Why? The bane of mankind is not necessarily our death or that of a loved one, but our inability to understand.

Shakespeare has Macbeth mourning the premature death of his wife with these words:

She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Without God all this is too desperately true. Even with God the hurt is still painful, but hope is present and offers some peace.

My Favorite Poem

Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so:
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death; not yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy picture be,
Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow;
And soonest our best men with thee do go-
Rest of their bones and souls' delivery.
Thou'rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke. Why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And Death shall be no more:
Death, thou shalt die! -John Donne

Polio Praises

I was sitting on a rough-sawn bench in a hand-made cement block church building in Tema, Ghana West Africa. There were, perhaps, 300 people there with me. We were singing a song of praise. I was seated close to the front, on the end of a bench, by an opening where a window would eventually be. It was HOT. I needed the breeze. I was gazing out the window and saw someone coming down the dirt road leading up to the building. It was a thirtyish man. He was in a wheel chair. The chair was propelled by a bicycle-type crank (like a pedal) moved by hand and arm power. He was a polio victim.

When the man got to the stairs that led into the building, he dragged himself off the seat, sat on the bottom step and began raising himself backward one step at a time. When he reached the top step and turned to a crawling position, I noticed that he had a pair of flip flops (rubber sandals) on his hands. I also noticed that his legs were without muscle, mere bones covered with skin. His knees were thickly calloused.

The door he came in was at the front of the building between the pews and the platform where the song-leader and, later, the preacher stood. Everyone in the building watched the cripple. No one rose to assist him. He crawled across the front until he got to the center aisle. No seats up front. He turned and crawled to the back row where there were a couple of open spots on one of the benches. Without aid he struggled to raise himself to a sitting position on the bench; he turned his sweat-wet face toward the songleader, raised his head back . . . and sang praises to God!