I love flying. I don’t love waiting in airports to catch flights, or waiting to go through customs or waiting in line at washrooms, or waiting for luggage. No, what I love is looking down at the earth from 30 thousand feet. I always get a window seat if I can, and if the sky is clear I spend all my time watching the earth below. I have seen the peaks of the Himalayas, the sands of the Sahara, and the sparkling waters of Lake Victoria shimmering in the moonlight in the midst of the deep threatening jungle of the Congo . I have flown over the near endless tundra of the far north and traced the patterns of the icepacks around the Pole. I have been fortunate to have seen this and much more.

And the conclusion of all of this is? God is beautiful! Only a Being of near infinite beauty could have created such beauty ‘in His image.’ From the air the earth is wondrously beautiful; the sunsets are spectacular, the vistas breathtaking. Why is it we are so blind, so dull of sense that we cannot see His boundless beauty in the things He has made? Only our pettiness and our vanity keeps us from acknowledging He has truly ‘made all things well.’

The other conclusion that can be drawn from these views is that the activity of man is really in sum a paltry thing. For all our billions we don’t occupy a tenth of the landmass of the earth, and virtually none of the vast oceans. We think we are so important, that what we do has such an impact? We are fleas on an elephant, my friend. From 30 thousand feet you can hardly see us at all.

My employer, Taylor’s College, is kind enough to fly the Canadian staff home once a year. This year I delayed my going home to coincide with my daughter’s wedding, coming up next weekend. This means that I haven’t seen my family for nearly 14 months. In the interim my oldest son and his wife have had a third child, a girl whom they named Elisa Grace. Today my wife and I travelled the hour to their place for a visit. It was a truly joyous occasion, saddened partially by my son’s horrible accident that has left him with a broken leg and a painful 12 months of physiotherapy to recover its use. Such joy and hardship are part of our lives here on this earth. Our preoccupation with these things can leave us little time to contemplate the One who created and placed us here. Which is perhaps why I like flying so much.