Flights of Faith

I think a great deal of the anxiety-prone population pray at their peak prayer-ness while in airplanes. All of us doom-dwellers are thinking "Oh God, please don't let me freak out before the flight." "Why in God's name must this thing go so fast to lift off?!" "Dear God how did I convince myself I would be fine floating in a big chunk of aluminum?" "Please God, don't let the turbulence make me fall out of the sky to my untimely, and unwanted, death!"

Praying this much either makes me an idiot or an arrogant ass. Probably both.

Don't get me wrong, I believe in God 365 days a year (plus 1 on leap years), but I think I am a fervent believer in religion once I get a few miles up into the sky. It's almost as bad as praying for your basketball team to win the championship game or begging God to change the red light to green when you're late to an interview.

I can only temper the outrageous act of asking God to intervene at my convenience by saying that if I have learned one thing from 12 year of Catholic school, it is that we can turn to God when we can't turn to anyone else. When fear of death and whatever you are afraid of is at your door, where else can you go? I honestly can't help but to pray. I even started thinking of turbulence as angels bumping the plane to be funny. Ha-ha angels. You're hysterical...I'd beat you with your own wing if you weren't supposedly safeguarding me from harm.

If you can't tell, I have to fly soon. And I have to fly alone. Double whammy. I know it's safe, I know I will be fine, but I can tell you that for about six total hours over the next few weeks, I will be trying not to vom, praying my guts out and threatening those fat angels who keep bumping my little tin rocket around.