Flying

The other day we were talking with a friend about flying. We reminisced about the time well before September 11, 2001 when it seemed almost carefree. Flying is even more challenging in these pandemic or endemic days of COVID. To be honest, we don’t look forward to flying in large part because of the stress. Short fuses, overbooked flights, news stories about violence in the air, and constant delays that we have experienced make it a challenge. As we prepare once again to make a quick trip to Minnesota to see my dad, I feel the same sort of uneasiness welling up within me.

I was browsing through one of Thomas Merton’s journals (A Search for Solitude: Pursuing the Monk’s Life, The Journals of Thomas Merton, Volume 3:1952-1960) when I came across this entry which he wrote while flying to Minnesota and St John’s Abbey for a conference. It seems appropriate to read this and I believe it might be a good thought to focus on each time that we fly.

What a wonderful thing, to ride in the sky and keep quiet and love God. It is indeed true that He asks this–not only the riding in the sky, but love, whatever it may mean for each of us. — July 22, 1956

Keep quiet and love God… I would also add love our neighbors as ourselves.