The Deacon's Bench - July, 2010

One of the things that’s emphasized when you’re learning to fly is “situational awareness (SA).” What SA means is that nothing escapes your attention as you check out yourself, your equipment, the weather, and the myriad other details that you need to grasp to create your flight plan, fly someplace, and return safely.

Successful (i.e.,“living”) pilots perceive, understand, and react effectively to every variable that can affect any aspect of flight. Nothing’s ever overlooked; sage pilots know that Mother Nature sides with the hidden flaw. Ultimately, a pilot’s SA skills determine in large measure whether he or she will return to earth in the same condition as when he or she left it.

In a reflective moment, it seemed to me that much of our ability to get by in life is like that, too. Just about everything requires us to be alert, understand what’s going on, stay two steps ahead of the situation, and respond appropriately at all times. This explains sleep, I think. High SA is exhausting – who can keep it up 24x7?

The list of SA’s enemies includes distraction, presumption, rushing through things, pride and perhaps less obvious things too, like headaches. Anything that diminishes SA – our ability to perceive, understand, and respond appropriately – before, during or even after a flight can be fatal. Same goes in life writ large; relationships can crash and burn too if we lose sight of what’s happening, fail to understand, or respond inappropriately.

Perhaps it’s the same spiritually. Just as an airplane is subject to our choices as pilots, so our souls are subject to our moral decisions as humans. It seems to me that spiritual SA is even more important than day-to-day SA. If you’re distracted at some point during a ballgame, you may miss the double play, but if you’re continually missing the signals, you just may lose the game.

The enemies of spiritual SA are the same; distractions over career, money and other peoples’ opinions; presumption about what merits our attention and what doesn’t; rushing through life so fast we miss its meaning. The less obvious obstacles are there too – bad health and an un-accepting disposition, resentments, petty selfishness – all these can a take person’s SA clean down to zero.

Jesus taught us that he is “the way, the life, and the truth.” To get what this really means, you need to know that the Greek word for “truth” is αλήθεια (alethia) – literally “not being asleep/unaware/dead”. The Jesus that we invite into our hearts and share with one another is He who is fully alive, fully and simultaneously aware of the human and the divine condition and at least two steps ahead of every situation we’ll ever find ourselves in. Want your soul to fly? Let Jesus show you what SA really means!

Deacon Tim’s Emergency Recipe #53-b: Snarch
1 can mushroom soup
1 pile hamburger meat, or something that looks like it
1 can peas, peas and carrots, or just carrots, or even nothing at all
Garlic – enough to cover your tracks
1.608 pinch Herbs de Provence, if you need to show off
Brown meat; throw in soup, optional veggies and Herbs de Provence. Cook. Eat.