| Sunny Side Up Sept. 28, 2005 � 2005, Kathleen Gibson Faith, fear, and final moments I sat breathless, my eyes riveted to our television. Millions of other North Americans did the same. A game goal didn't hold us there, nor a hurricane or terrorist mission. Our screens showed only an expanse of blue sky and a solitary jet, flying straight and true. The plane had just taken off when a warning light came on - the one that reports on the plane's landing gear. The front assembly, right under the nose, hadn't retracted. Not only that, it had become askew - ninety degrees off. The pilots decided to turn back, but landing gear wheels aren't meant to contact the tarmac sideways. Someone called the media, who attacked the story like Rottweilers. Passengers rapidly became all too aware of their own predicament. On the backs of each of their seats hung a television screen. Those who wished (and many did) were free to watch the same coverage we saw below, as armchair experts and journalists postulated on the story's end. Would the plane crash? Overshoot the runway? Burst into flames? "You know," said one 'authority', "I'm just speculating, but the landing gear will break off, and the nose will drive into the pavement. . . ." A hundred and forty six people suddenly had reason to believe they sat poised on eternity's threshold. For three hours the plane circled, trying to burn fuel. Inside, people tried calling loved ones from their cell phones. One man taped a final message to his family. Some lowered their heads and cried. Some laughed uproariously. Likely a few bargained with God. Maybe some made 'foxhole conversions'. What would you have done? Whenever I fly, I picture God's hand, swooping over my aircraft and suspending it in the air, like a child with a toy plane, finally bringing it gently earthward. At home, I prayed for that. The pilot landed that jet softly, keeping the front end in the air, like a dog doing a dance, for as long as he could. When it finally touched, the front tires skidded, smoked, and eventually burst in a wide shower of sparks that raced momentarily along the belly of that plane, then extinguished themselves. The jet stopped. At home, I rejoiced. The next day, an aeronautics specialist reported that the plane had a less than one percent chance of crashing; that the jet's nose-gear was built to withstand that kind of pressure. But it was too late. A hundred and forty-six fortunate people had faced their own mortality. Believing the end may be near, they'd had three hours to ponder life's most important questions. Three hours to decide if anything they'd lived for really mattered. Three hours to examine the depths of their belief - or lack thereof - in God, heaven, hell, and personal accountability for sin. And the next day, a second chance. Most of us won't get that. We'll have a moment; if that. It behooves us to make those decisions well ahead of time, based not on fear, but on faith. How's yours? Respond Home |
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