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.
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.
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