Hang Gliding and the Perils of Being Self-Taught

Note: Please do not use this as an instruction guide for hang gliding.

Spring of 1993

"Mackin has a hang glider,"  KK whispered those words across the aisle in English class.

"Awesome!" I responded.

There was never any doubt that we were going to try it out.  It didn't matter that Mackin had just found the hang glider in the attic of his garage and the last person to use it was Mackin's grandfather sometime in the mid-1970's.

A quick query of our group of friends turned up no hang gliding knowledge beyond "You're supposed to run off high things."

So I went to the Capital High library and looked for a book on hang gliding.  They had one.  Well, kind of.  It was a book about kites that included a few chapters on hang gliding.  The book didn't have a set of directions, but I managed to identify these key points.

Lean left to go left.  Lean right to go right.  Lean forward to go faster.  Lean back to slow down.  Lean too far back and you risk stalling the hang glider in mid-air - not recommended.

I checked with my friends and we decided that those directions would be enough to get us through the maiden voyage.  As a precaution, we decided not to take it off anything too high until we got the feel for it.


Three days later, my friends and I stood on top off a large grassy hill northwest of Helena.  The hang glider had ripped when we bumped it into a barbed wire fence during transit, but we'd remembered duct tape so the mission continued.

The wind picked up from the east.  My stomach was full of nervous butterflies.  It was still a toss-up between me and Mackin for who would take the maiden flight.  I'd read the book, but he'd found the hang glider.  According to teenaged male logic, it was a close call.

I looked down the hill at the powerlines half a mile away.  "Do you think that those powerlines are too close?" I asked.

"No, it'll never go that far," KK said.  "Besides, even if it did, a guy would probably figure out how to steer it by then."

I nodded.

Then it happened.  While putting on one more layer of duct tape over the torn fabric, someone noticed a label that said the the hang glider had a weight limit.  It was 160 pounds.

I wasn't big, but I was well out of that range.  Mackin was ten or more pounds above 160.

Chet was the only member of our group that met the weight limit.  He volunteered with a chuckle.  Chet put on a motorcycle helmet while the rest of us tried to strap him onto the base of the hang glider.

The wind had died down while we were up on the hill, but we decided to give it a go anyway.  I held onto one side of the hang glider.  Mackin held onto the other side.  Chet held onto the bar in front of him and stared out at the horizon.  On the count of three, we ran...

And we ran and we ran.  Our flight team went a full fifty yards up and over the crest of the hill and then down below.  No lift, nothing.  So we turned around, walked back up the hill, and did it again.  Still nothing.

We went back on top of the hill and waited for the wind.  After about five minutes, a stiff breeze began to blow from the east.  Chet nodded and we began to run.  The wind caught flapping wings and launched the hang glider off of the hill.  Chets blue jean covered legs flapped in the blue sky.

I was cheering when a hard gust of wind hit the hang glider.  The nose of the hang glider snapped backward.  Chet didn't have time to lean forward.  The hang glider did a complete flip in the air and continued going backward.

Chet's feet were up in the air when the hang glider slammed into the ground below him.  The hang glider snapped in two.

I couldn't see Chet through the wreckage of the hang glider, but I could hear him scream in pain.  My feet carried me down the hill expecting to find snapped limbs and impaled guts.

I was wrong.  Chet was up and fighting way out of the harness.  His screams became more coherent.  "Cactus!  Cactus!"

The gust of wind had pulled Chet sixty yards through the air and dropped him down upon a massive patch of cactus.





I still chuckle every time I think about that day, but there is a lesson beyond the obvious hang gliding safety issues.  When tackling something challenging and important, it's important to have guidance from someone who knows more than you do.

It's a basic lesson and most of us wouldn't struggle to apply it to hang gliding; but we do struggle in applying it to something infinitely more complicated - our spiritual journey.

Most of us stumble along through our spiritual life.  We sit through the sermons on Sunday and nod at the appropriate times.  We might read through a Bible or some other spiritual book, but there's no system to it.  No one to help us get through our personal spiritual challenges.  No one with enough authority to tell us that we're not getting it.

We wouldn't expect to learn a trade with that learning style.  We wouldn't expect that method from any degree bestowing institution.  Yet, we rely upon it to come up with the answers to some of the most critical issues of our lives such as "Why are we here?" and "What happens to us when we die."

At some point, anyone working on developing a deeper spiritual life needs to go beyond that superficial level and find someone to help them find their way around the more challenging questions.  The anonymous author of  The Way of the Pilgrim strikes out upon this path when he determines that he is not going to get the specific answers he needs from general sermons.  "I settled on another plan - by God's help to look for some experienced and skilled person who would give me in conversation that teaching ... which drew me so urgently."

There aren't a lot of hermits on the mountains in this modern world.  Monks and sages are in short supply, but that's not a worthwhile excuse.  We can always find someone with enough knowledge about a faith question to a least point out a good book or two on an issue.  That spiritual director will not always be right, but some of the most powerful lessons will come while you're trying to figure out why they are wrong.

Without help, you might not go any farther than sixty yards down a hill and into a cactus patch.  With help, the horizon becomes a more likely destination.

Cider Vinegar, Anxiety and Mindfulness

August 2011

I'm not the best housekeeper.  It's not to the level where the Health Department is making complaints, but there's plenty of room for improvement.  I also tend to buy way too much fruit at Costco.  The result of those two character flaws is very predictable.  Every couple of months, my kitchen is taken over by fruit flies.

Fortunately, someone was kind enough to put a solution to my fruit fly problem on the internet.  Now each time they arrive in droves, I fill a glass with cider vinegar and then add a few drops of detergent.  The result is always a mass fruit fly drowning.  Their little bodies float around the cider like mob victims in the East River.

If I were a better person, I'd feel bad about it.  Maybe someday I'll reach that point and begin storing my fruit in the fridge.  Until then, I'll keep a bottle of cider vinegar in in the cabinet over the stove in preparation for the next wave of flies.

The last one was two weeks ago after I got overzealous in purchasing bananas.  I put out a vinegar trap and watched the carnage play out over the next couple of days.  The trap is that it takes advantage of the one of the fruit flies most important survival instincts - their ability to detect foods rich in natural sugars.

The fruit flies natural instincts tell them that the cider is a natural sugar jackpot.  They're always a little wary at first, but eventually move in to feed.  When faced with a sugary liquid, the small flies' feeding technique utilizes the surface tension of the liquid to support their bodies while they drink.

The detergent eliminates the surface tension on the surface of the cider.  The change of one variable transforms this normal and healthy feeding impulse and transforms it into a destructive urge.

As someone who has struggled against the crippling effects of anxiety over the years, I see some parallels in the way that the cider trap and anxiety trap their pray.  The root of anxiety is usually something good.  It may be anxiety for your past sins, your ability to care for your family, complete obligations at work, etc. 

These are all good inclinations when we can actually take action to affect the situtation that we're concerned about, but the change in one variable transforms them into anxiety that hazardous to our daily functioning and spiritual journey. 

That variable is the separation of our inclination to take action on an issue from the ability to take action.  If we are not able to act on the issue that concerns us, that natural concern festers into anxiety.  We spend more and more time dwelling on an issue that is currently beyond our control.  Until we end up in a situation that Buddhist monk and Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh describes as "lost in the past or carried away by future projects and concerns." 

The path to anxiety is well-traveled and its one that every Seeker needs to to avoid.  Saint Paul makes this very clear in his Letter to the Philippians when he writes, "Have not anxiety at all[.]" Saint Paul continues by stating that instead of being anxious we should make our requests known to God through prayer, "[t]hen the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus."  Philippians 4:6-7.

Prayer is a simple shortcut around anxiety; but some of us, myself included, struggle to pray our way around it.  Some of my own shortcomings in this department are probably caused by weaknesses in faither and fervor, but I believe part of the probloem is my inability to reach a level of Inner Silence where I can pray effectively.  (I borrowed the term Inner Silence from the Sufi tradition, although in my case the Buddhist's goal of taming the "monkey mind" is probably more apt.)

For those of us not yet sitting at the front of prayer class, Saint Paul further describes the path to overcome anxiety.  "[W]hatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things."  Philippians 4:7-8. The practice of short circuiting our brain's movement towards anxiety by focusing on something beautiful is described as concentrated mindfulness.

Buddhist practitioners call this practice vipasyana (looking deeply).  According to Thich Nhat Hanh, vipasyana "means observing something or someone with so much concentration that the distinction between observer and observed disappears."  Hanh add, "The result is true insight into the nature of an object."

Modern psychology is taking notice of the benefits of the type of concentrated mindfulness recommended by both the Buddha and St. Paul.  Many of the best therapists are now utilizing mindfulness based therapeutic practices such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy to treat extreme cases of anxiety, depression, and addiction.

Unfortunately, this rise in the secular world's practice of concentrated mindfulness has corresponded with the diminishment in the  average Western Christian's use of these techniques.  We are so focused on Sain Paul's first lesson calling us to prayer that we have forgotten about his second less calling us to mindfulness. 

We must reclaim practice because for many of us Saint Paul's call to mindfulness is a necessary tool to achieve the Lord's command to "Be still, and know that I am God."  Psalm 46:10.  


END NOTE: The quote of Psalm 46:10 is taken from the New International Version of the Bible.  The New American Version of the Bible describes the command as "Be still and confess that I am God!"  For anyone looking for simple techniques to experience mindfulness, I recommend Come to Your Senses: Demystifying the Mind Body Connection by Dr. Stanley Block and Carolyn Bryant-Block.  Dr. Block's techniques are being utilized by everyone from combat vets with PTSD to major league baseball players.