The already tiny plane was barely visible from the ground at 10,000 feet. Fortunately it was a gorgeous day and I was able to locate the Cessna directly overhead. “There she is!” cried one of the crew that was waiting with me on the ground to assist the skydivers as they land.
“Where?” I said. The plane was small enough. Then I saw a tiny little dot separating from the plane and realized that little dot was my wife hurtling towards us at terminal velocity with nothing between her and the ground but a chute that better open. (Terminal velocity is the maximum speed a falling body reaches. For a person in free fall, the terminal velocity is about 135 miles an hour.) The other dot was my daughter, Anne. There they were, the two most important women in my life, nothing but tiny falling dots in a deep blue sky.
There goes one chute! There goes the other! Phew! I think it might be harder being on the ground for this than in the sky.
This whole thing had started as a Christmas gift between my son and the girl he is dating. When my wife, Marti, got wind of it, she expressed her lifelong desire to go too, and then my daughter Anne and her boyfriend joined in and it became a family affair. For reasons I don’t need to go into here, I decided not to jump and in retrospect, I’m glad I did (although I have already announced that the next trip will be on my birthday in May).
My joy was to thoroughly enjoy my wife’s experience from her point of view. Had I decided to jump, it would have been hard not to be overwhelmed with my own emotions and unable to pay much attention to anything else. As it turned out, my joy was to take pleasure in everyone else’s experience. Shared experiences are fine, too, but they can also turn into a sort of competition over emotions. As far as I was concerned, this was Marti’s day, with nothing to stand between her and her experience, and it was good.
I think there’s some take home value here. Learning to appreciate someone else’s experience even when it has nothing to do with yours is an advanced level of caring we would do well to cultivate. Jesus learned to empathize with the sorrow of people at the tomb of Lazarus so much that he wept, even when he knew he was going to raise Lazarus from the dead. Only when we get beyond ourselves can we truly love.
I’m learning to fly but I ain’t got wings
Coming down is the hardest thing
– from the song, Learning to Fly by Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne
John Fischer The Catch 
I’ve thought a lot about these past posts—loved Marti’s perspective yesterday and really love your analogy about letting HER have the experience and then writing about HER experience—we need to be reminded of allowing another’s experience and joy to take flight and significance without our actually having to experience it and then let OUR opinion become more important.
John, nice lyrics, but I think these apply much better. It is one of my wifes favorite.
The Cape – Guy Clark
Eight years old with flour sack cape
Tied all around his neck
He climbed up on the garage
Figurin’ what the heck
He screwed his courage up so tight
The whole thing come unwound
He got a runnin’ start and bless his heart
He headed for the ground
Chorus
He’s one of those who knows that life
Is just a leap of faith
Spread your arms and hold you breath
Always trust your cape
All grown up with a flour sack cape
Tied all around his dream
He’s full of piss and vinegar
He’s bustin’ at the seams
He licked his finger and checked the wind
It’s gonna be do or die
He wasn’t scared of nothin’, Boys
He was pretty sure he could fly
Chorus
Old and grey with a flour sack cape
Tied all around his head
He’s still jumpin’ off the garage
And will be till he’s dead
All these years the people said
He’s actin’ like a kid
He did not know he could not fly
So he did
Chorus
You have answered a question I have had. “When we are overwhelmed with Happyness, we laugh and gigle like a child, but when we are overewhelmed with Joy
we cry like a baby?”
Your post today immediately brought to mind the title song by our mutual friend Pam Mark Hall, from her first album, “FLYING” (excerpted below) —
“The day I met Jesus, I was stumbling through the dark,
searching to find a spark of life within me.
He said, ‘I love you,’ and He promised to set me free
to live with Him eternally, then He set me FLYYYYYing!
Robert, St. Louis
Well, I sang into the night, knowing I’d alway be in flight with Him!”
Couldn’t help but thinks back to when I was learning sailing and I stood on the shore wondering if I should go as the wind was up. An old (I thought) sailor said to me as I shared my thoughts with him, “going out is optional, coming back to shore is mandatory”.
As I started to read today’s Catch that is where my mind went.
Blessings on your day, Dirk Hoogendoorn
Yep. What goes up, must come down.
John continues to make so much sense. As a writer, I can truly appreciate his gift. Of course God inspires those who have something to say, “In His Name.” God continue to bless you, John and know that you make a huge difference in thousands of lives.