One time, I was flying from Denver to Chicago in the spring
when the winds are awful. It was my first week at a new job and I moved
mountains and made lots of calls to get onto that flight with my boss so we could hightail it to
Chicago for a sales meeting.
I ended up in the middle seat near the front of
the plane and she was in the back. About an hour into the flight, the plane
started dropping out of the sky, literally. We were heading down and the pilot
came on the PA and shouted, “Everyone, in your seats now!” The flight
attendants ran with the little carts to the back of the plane and told everyone
to put their seat belts on.
It was quiet, strangely and eerily quiet except for a few
gasps and cries each time the plane would lurch up or down or side to side. It
went on for what felt like hours, but it was only a few minutes. But I was
scared, really, really scared. And I prayed to God. I did not pray to nature or
the wind or Good Orderly Direction or Yin or Yang. I prayed to capital “G” God
and I begged to live. And when I thought that might be asking for too much, I
reduced my prayer to please let me die on impact so I did not burn to death in the
fuselage.
In those last moments of thinking the plane was going down, I simply
wanted not to suffer physical pain. I did not ask for forgiveness, I did not
ask for anything other than the release of future pain.
The plane leveled out and we did not crash into the earth
at a million miles an hour. Everyone was quiet and weird and scared the rest of
the flight. The pilot came on and said it was unexpected turbulence that did
not show up on the radar and that it happens sometimes.
Did my prayer to God save us from crashing? No, because I
never even asked for the plane not to crash, I really just did not want to feel
pain. And I didn't. So, I guess there you go. I guess someone else must have
prayed for the plane not to crash.
Do I believe in God? I don’t know, but I pray every day
anyway. Because I did not burn to death in the fuselage. And because one day I
might.