Adrenaline

I wouldn't say I'm much of a daredevil, but the last two evenings my adrenaline pumped more than is typical. On Thursday, I took off in a four-seater airplane from the narrow runway of the Sandpoint Airport with pilot Nick of Tamarack Aerospace Group based here. He flies often, and had no qualms about offering me a tour of the landscape. I had never been in an aircraft other than commercial ones, so the sensation was intense. I didn't anticipate that he would give me control of the plane and let me fly the aircraft for the majority of the ride. Ten minutes after getting into the air, I was steering us down Lake Pend Oreille to Clark Fork and the Idaho-Montana state line, circling around the lush mountains and down Highway 95 to Sagle and Lake Cocololla, and high above the streets of Sandpoint. I didn't snap any photos because I was nervous enough steering the ship. Plus, out the side window, the passenger can see a good deal but the iPhone camera cannot. You will have to content yourself with a photo of the vessel that carried me on the voyage.

Just as the cockpit eased toward being uncomfortably warm and my stomach started to churn, Nick reassumed control, and we touched down after about 45 minutes of being airborne. I was reminded as we touched the sky how God used mountains to express moments of clarity in our salvation story: Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and Jesus all ratified covenants with God from the height of a mountain (Eden, Ararat, Moriah, Sinai, Zion, and Calvary). In Bible Basics for Catholics, John Bergsma talks about some of the reasons for this. He says we see things more clearly from a mountaintop or a great height. That perspective allows us the vantage to know what is happening, interpret it, and make wise decisions. In some ways, this summer is a plane ride for me -- ample time to reflect, work in parish ministry, a regimen of prayer and sacraments, the feedback of the people of God. Hopefully I can allow God to pilot the plane when needed too. It helps to have a partner in the cockpit that knows what they're doing because God knows as I steered us at 5,000 feet I had little clue how to do anything other than turn left and right or prop the plane's nose up or down.

After the plane ride, I wasn't expecting any subsequent adrenaline rushes, but the Lewis family decided as we boated around the lake last night that we should go around the peninsula to Green Bay, which is infamous for a cliff about 45 feet high that's ideal for plunging into the chilly water. Of course, after driving all the way to Green Bay and climbing up the rocky edge, I couldn't say no to the stunt. Here's a video of my jump, with an ending that wasn't quite upright. I'd call it a "butt flop." My rear end was a little sore for a few minutes afterward. No symbolic meaning for me here -- just a good time with friends and a just slightly stinging memory.