As they say…perception is not always reality. Sometimes we can’t believe our eyes. Sometimes we can. Sometimes we can’t believe our feelings. Sometimes we can. If we believe what we shouldn’t believe…we just might go into a tailspin.

That’s why I hung a toy airplane from our kitchen ceiling about 15 years ago.  The little plane hangs upside down as a warning about the danger of spatial disorientation.

Spatial disorientation is the inability to correctly interpret aircraft altitude or airspeed in relation to the earth or point of reference. Spatial disorientation is a condition in which an aircraft pilot’s perception of direction does not agree with reality.   (Wikipedia)

In other words, an airplane pilot can be flying along just fine; keeping an eye on the horizon. He knows exactly where he is and what his plane is doing.  But if he loses sight of the horizon for some reason – say a heavy fog rolls in or a storm comes up – the pilot loses his point of reference and can become disoriented.

With no accurate point of reference, up can feel exactly like down and vice versa.  Feeling as if he is operating the plane very skillfully and gaining altitude, the pilot can drive it straight into the ground.  He would not know, until too late, that his perception was wrong – his feelings lied to him.

A pilot who is flying blind because of weather or darkness needs to know how to fly using his instrument panel. He can’t rely on his feelings. Only the instrument panel will provide accurate data about how to proceed.

This funny little video  from AOPA  illustrates the dangers of flying blind.

So the toy plane hangs in our kitchen, reminding us not to act on our feelings alone.

We got this idea years ago from an old “Moody Science Classics” video, but we’ve talked about it a lot over the years since John and Monica both took ground school and flight training and Monica is now a licensed pilot. It’s a perfect illustration.

The bible is our instrument panel as we go through life.  It’s God’s word to all humans, and it addresses every wind of circumstance, cloud of sorrow, and storm of adversity we fly into. It even gives directions about how to proceed on a bright sunny day. 

It’s important to be familiar with the bible, the instrument panel, but a lot of people would rather fly by feelings – perceived facts.

Even Christians who believe the bible… even me. 

So often I forget, and sway under discouragement, or go into a little tailspin of worry. Then with relief I remember my control panel – the words designed by my Maker who knows the complete flight plan of our lives.

That’s why I hung that little airplane in my kitchen.

I was reading the funnies yesterday and “The Other Coast” had a comic about some people catching rainwater in a barrel from the gutter of their roof.  A squirrel had washed into the barrel. (That was the joke.)

As I looked at the panel I was carried back to my Ohio childhood, when my dad rigged up a barrel to catch rainwater.  We lived out in the country and our water was held in a cistern. We had to have water delivered in a big pump truck every few months, so we considered the rain barrel a smart economic move.

The picture in the comic actually looked like a caricature of our house and rain barrel, so it didn’t seem that funny to me. But it brought out some wonderful reminiscing.

We also ate squirrels that my dad shot in our woods, but to my knowledge we never caught one in the rain barrel.

Looking at the comic, I wondered how old Adrian Raeside is. Drinking rainwater and eating squirrel just didn’t seem that odd to me.  And then suddenly it hit me — I was shocked to realize my rainwater barrel and squirrel eating days were 50 years ago!

More than 50 years actually.  Gulp!

I remember so many conversations with our good friend Peggy Kilmer, who was in her nineties.  Peggy would laughingly sigh and say, “Sometimes I catch sight of myself in a mirror and say ‘Who is that old lady?’ I still feel the same as I ever did.”

Miss Peggy, I can relate!

One of my favourite songs is Jim Croce’s haunting Time in a Bottle… “But there never seems to be enough time to do the things you want to do, once you find them…”

This is true, but more to the point I love C.S. Lewis’s thoughts about time.  We live in time and it’s all we really know, but we’re always shocked at the passage of time. (I can hardly believe my grandson already three years old!)  Lewis says it’s because we know, deep down, that we’re not supposed to get old and die. God made us for a timeless existence.  Our natural element is eternity.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 tells us that God has set eternity in our hearts…that none of us can fathom what all he has done, and that he makes everything beautiful in its time.  Wow!

So with eternity set in my heart, I’m going to remind myself of one more thing C.S Lewis said. The present – right now – is the point at which time touches eternity. So I want to make the most of this eternal moment! Carpe Diem!