I don’t have much experience flying, and it was my first late night flight. Since I had a window seat, I spent most of my time staring out the
window and looking down.
The world looks very different from 10,000 feet. The
pattern of lights during the night is absolutely gorgeous from the air. (I took pictures on my
cell phone, but my cell phone camera is
garbage, and my technological prowess is even worse, so sharing is out. You’ll just have to trust me - or go flying yourself.)
You realize very quickly how small people are
high in the air. People are completely unrecognizable from a mile or two up. Cars
can’t be seen from that height (and I have very good vision). All that you can see in the night
is stationary lights. Small clusters of lights for towns, huge clusters for cities. Lights, lights everywhere. And this pattern of lights is strangely beautiful and comforting. It displays the extent of man's presence on earth. It is also symbolic of man's weakness - his smallness in the grand scheme of things. We are merely a small part of a very large world.
God commanded His creations to "fill the earth and subdue it." (Gen 1:28) And the proliferation of lights shows that man, for all his imperfections and failures, has fulfilled this command.
It has been a while since I've been airborne, but I too have experienced this, and I called it the "God's eye view" of our world. I think of how He sees it, with so much darkness, yet there are these gleams and glimmers to show where people are praying and doing His will...
ReplyDelete(During the day there is another sort of meditation, but it works rather according to the same formula.)
Incidentally, for your further illumination (pun intended) I will mention something curious I noted while driving, say on a highway where one sees the RED taillights of others receding ahead of you, and the WHITE headlamps of the on-coming cars in the other lanes.... and immediately it recalls the image of the Divine Mercy.
safe journeys to you and to all...