Life Adventures and Life Lessons

Back in the fall of 2014, my daughter Alexandria had an interview for Emory’s Physical Therapy program in Atlanta. Aunt Fanny had been visiting with us from Columbus, Georgia at the time. I rode with Alex to keep her company, we took Aunt Fanny with us, and the three of us left Nashville, Tennessee for Georgia.

On the way down, traffic came to a complete standstill before we even reached Chattanooga. We were not going anywhere, so Alex used GPS and it gave us an alternate route. Now we had been taking major interstates, but the detour took us on our merry way along a back road.

So here we were driving down this little two-lane highway when Aunt Fanny looked out the window up into the sky and asked, ‘”What are those things up there?” I looked and was just as puzzled as she was. We kept watching them until we finally figured out that they were hang-gliders.

We watched them for a few minutes and I mentioned that it looked fun. Aunt Fanny incredulously asked me if I really thought so and I answered yes. Alex asked me if I would hang-glide if I had the chance. I paused and then told her that if I ever did get the chance, I sure hope that I would do it because it looked like a beautiful thing to experience.

After a bit, we had bypassed the traffic jam, gotten back onto the interstate, and continued on to Atlanta. Uncle David met us to pick up Aunt Fanny in Atlanta and Alex had her interview at Emory the next day. Afterward, we returned home and the hang-gliders were forgotten.

My 55th birthday was a couple months later. For my birthday, Alex handed me a card and in that card was a little triangle of paper. She asked me if I knew what it was. Of course, I saw a triangle of paper but Alex told me that it was supposed to represent a hang-glider. You see, the hang-gliders had not been forgotten by Alex. Alex had talked to her sister Roxanna, and for my birthday, the two of them went in together to pay for the chance for me to hang-glide! My birthday is in February so we waited until summer to schedule our adventure.

At 3:30 in the morning of June 28, 2015, Alex and I got up and drove to Lookout Mountain for our adventure. Alex was going to hang-glide too.


                                           
                                                       Wondering what we are getting into!



We had "flight training" in AM. We were supposed to do four little solo practice runs on the "bunny slopes" in the AM. I despise running, and I had to run while carrying a 50# kite. The lady Alex talked to on the phone prior to scheduling our adventure said it wouldn't be very far, just like making it to first base from home plate. Well, that was much further than it appears on TV or the field! I hoped that I wouldn't have to reach much of a speed. Even when I was in shape and ran on a regular basis, I was never fast! The bunny slopes were both a blessing and a curse! After performing abysmally on the first run, one of the instructors approached me and told me that if I would agree to forego any more bunny runs, they would take my glider up to 3000 feet instead of the 1500 feet I was supposed to go up to. Well, I was on that deal like a duck on a June bug; I wouldn’t have to run anymore and I could soar even higher!!

The morning session ended and we had a three-hour break to recuperate and get lunch. After the break, I harnessed into a tandem hang-glider with my instructor, and an ultralight aircraft pulled the hang-glider up to 3000 feet before releasing the line that tethered our glider to the aircraft. Then we soared and it was such an incredibly beautiful experience!


                                            

                                           

                                           

                                           

                                            


Now, folks who know me, know that I love the mountains. The mountains are a welcoming haven for me, a haven where my soul is touched by a lovely peace, and also a feeling of closeness to God and thankfulness to God.

Until my hang-gliding adventure, I had only seen those mountains with my feet planted firmly on the ground. Granted, I may have been standing on top of a mountain, looking down into a valley, but you still cannot get that fluid stream of movement and wind like when you are gliding in the sky.

So anyway, gliding through the sky gives a person a different perspective than that person who is standing on firm ground. This got me thinking. If a person who only has a feet-on-the-ground perspective were to describe the mountains, it probably would be similar to but also different from the description of the eye-in-the-sky perspective. A person with the feet-on-the-ground perspective might even deem the description of the eye-in-the-sky perspective unbelievable when actually both perspectives are accurate. Like the blind men describing the elephant, each perspective is different but accurate in its own way.

This made me think of people in general. How many times have we heard another person say something that differed from what we ourselves have perceived as accurate? How many times have we dismissed this different perspective without even considering that it could also be accurate? How many times have we unreasonably closed our minds to a different but actual truth?

This experience also made me think about something else. Before I actually went hang-gliding, sometimes I would just stand with my arms extended and eyes closed and envision the exhilaration that an eagle or hawk must feel during flight. I know that that may be difficult to believe but I have actually done that, and will probably do it again in the future! Anyhow, I tried to imagine being a bird gliding along with the help of the thermals. I imagined how it felt, and it felt good! I thought that I had done a pretty good job of imagining how it would be because I think that I have a pretty good imagination. But, when I was actually up there gliding through the heavens, well, the actuality faaaaar surpassed the imagined!

This observation made me also think about folks in general. How many times have we imagined how another person feels? How many times have we imagined that we knew exactly how we would’ve handled a situation sooo much better than another person has? How many times has our imagination enabled us to think that another has failed miserably at handling a situation because we imagine that we could’ve handled it so much better?

This experience made me realize that I should not imagine that I would do things differently than another person. That person’s actuality might just be so much more than my imagination can ever begin to conjure up! It is good to try to put yourself in the shoes of another, just don’t arrogantly assume that you got it just right!

So life is full of adventures and lessons that we can learn from. From this one hang-gliding adventure I have learned several lessons. First, that blessings can come wrapped in very ugly paper. The ugly “paper” of a traffic jam “wrapped” the beautiful blessing of being able to hang-glide. We would have never seen those hang-gliders if it had not been for that traffic jam!

Another lesson that I learned from this adventure was that different perspectives can hold truth. Finally, our imaginings of what another person is going through may pale in comparison to their actuality.

I have not mastered any of these lessons but at least I recognize that they are lessons that I need to further study.

So, if you ever get the chance to go hang-gliding, please go hang-gliding! You can have an adventure and learn beautiful lessons at the same time!