Better than flying to Nova Scotia (Chapter 2, Day 4)

Dear sons,

(If this is your first time here, go back to the first day.)

Chapter 2 of Play the Man talks a lot about star gazing, which is of course one of my favorite past-times. Melissa and I have gone out in August and stared up to the sky at 3 a.m. A few weeks ago, I did the same thing, but it was on a freezing cold December morning.

Last summer I thought about driving eight hours to see, as Carly Simon would say, “a total eclipse of the sun.” But then I found it would be coming to Texas in seven years, and I couldn’t find anyone to go with me. (And yes I think it's coming here is probably about me, I'm so vain).

On May 20, 2012, I rushed years ago after church to drive to Copperas Cove so I could merely see a partial solar eclipse at sunset from a tall hill on the western part of town. I wrote on my Facebook, "Can't explain why seeing a solar eclipse through a tire made me so happy. Insanity is the only explanation. Hope I don't go blind."

I don’t think I like stars and celestial shows like lunar and solar eclipses because of my fascination with Star Trek as a kid (okay as an adult too). I do feel like a kid and have child-like wonder when I go out on South Padre Island and watch “stars” fall from the sky but not because of science fiction.

I do feel small when I think about the vastness of the universe, but I don’t feel insignificant.

My first ride in an airplane was when I was nearly in college. The combination of my mother being afraid of heights and also because we were pretty close to being dirt poor prevented me from flying until then. I remember in second grade a friend (Robert Forsythe) and I promised ourselves that when we grew up we were going to get to fly in a plane!

My first flight was on Southwest Airlines. I saw a businessman get on board and never even looked out the window and it wasn’t because he was afraid of flights like Peter Panning. It was because he lost his sense of child-like wonder.

I literally remember thinking to myself when I saw him, “I hope I never get on to an airplane and not look out the window and have a sense of wonder.” To this day, some 30 years later, almost every time I fly I imagine like Walter Middy or more like a little kid that I don’t have to have an airplane to fly. I look out the window and dream about flying.

A couple of years ago, I was even given a trip by my lovely wife and family to go to I Fly to be the closest to the simulation that I could fly. I am so glad my family was with me. When it was my turn to go, I jumped out onto that pocket of air on my birthday as if I had flown like a bird all my life, because in my imagination and in my literal sleep induced dreams, I have!

When I get in a plane and stare out the little window, I see the cars begin to look like ants and houses turn into blurry rows and streets turn into lines and then disappear altogether, I think about how many prayers are being lifted up from all of those people in all those houses that soon I can no longer see. And I think to myself, “How in the world can God hear and care about all of the prayers lifted up in the world from this vast, vast earth.”

No, I don’t feel insignificant when I stare at the stars. And no, I don’t think it is insurmountable for an infinite God to be able to care about every prayer being lifted up. Quite the opposite.

I feel very significant that despite the vastness of space and I feel important that with all of the more than seven billion people in this world, God knows my name and the hairs on my head and not only that, but every sparrow that falls to the ground.

This wonder and wonder full of creation has a Creator and He knows me and loves me. What I find more incredulous than all of that is that I am told that this Father God of ours loves us more than I love my children and more than you love yours, or will love yours. Now that is mind-boggling.

But I do not doubt that one bit.

In fact, I’m counting on it.

I love you sons,

Dad/Pops