Perspectives

It was late, very late actually. We sat for 3 hours in Dallas because of storm. Riding out an early spring Texas storm not so safely nestled in the cigar like fuselage of a Boeing 707 is not a lot of fun. It was exciting though. Before the tarmac crews were able to get the metal bird anchored to the ground we bounced round like one of those ping-pong balls in a lotto machine. One particularly frightened woman began to mutter something about not wanting to die while on a parking lot stuffed into a human sausage-making machine. I pointed out that while this was not as much fun as the tornado rollercoaster at Six Flags, it did beat being on the plane when it does these kind of gymnastics at 30,000 feet.

That was hours ago now. We were now in a holding pattern circling the City of Chicago. It seemed that the storm, which hit Dallas, had also delayed air traffic across most of the Midwest as it made its trek across the southern tier of states. Tired, hungry and thoroughly disgusted that air travel was punctuality challenged, I looked out the window of what I was beginning to believe would be my airborne hotel room for the night.

Chicago, at 12:30 am, from the sky is deceiving. The vast expanse of bright lights, matted on a carpet of blackness is breath taking. It is as if someone took a piece of black velvet and scattered thousands of tiny diamonds across it. For a split second, I thought to myself how beautiful a city Chicago was. Then, just as quickly, I returned to the world of the coherent and remembered why I was suspended several thousand feet above this giant farm of lights. I was to be in a business the next day on the near north side, trying to figure out why the inventory shortage numbers had come in at fifteen percent. The image of the store and the particular neighborhood it was in brought me back to reality much as if someone had poured ice water down my back. My eyes were drawn from the scattered brilliance of the diamonds and now seemed to concentrate on the flashing red and blue lights that now seemed to dominate the city streets. You see there is another perspective one has in that position, one can see the activity of Chicago’s finest as they race from one crime scene to another, their flashing beacons evidence of the real problems of any big city. I suddenly thought of how the same scene I was looking at might appear to the men in blue who were seeing it from ground zero.

Perspective; it is all about perspective. What might be beautiful from one vantage point might be terribly ugly from another. What might appear peaceful from the safety of several thousand feet might actually be frightful from a closer vantage. The city wrapped in brilliance and apparent sterility at 10,000 feet was actually full of death, filth, pain, and suffering at zero feet.

So often, the Church views life from 10,000 feet. We see the brilliance and beauty of life. We see the mask that others put on in order to appear normal and acceptable. It is a comfortable way to minister. Do not get dirty, do not face hardship, and do not let anything draw you away from your stained glass vantage point as you circle life at 10,000 feet.

As I read the Gospels, I find that Jesus never shied away from the dirty side f life. In fact, it was to the unseemly He ministered too. Of course, from their seats in the synagogue, the Pharisees viewed this as inappropriate. They viewed Jesus ministry as invalid because He choose not to confine Himself to the clean and sterile viewpoint at 10,000 feet.

Christianity is not just a noun it is also a verb. We need to get out of the holding pattern, land this plane, disembark, and get to work. By the way, I walked out of that store the next night to find my rental car had no unbroken glass or un-slashed rubber. Didn’t see that coming from the air.

Enjoy the Java

Jim