I am flying today, sitting right now on a MD88, cruising along at about 30,000 feet, headed to Texas for a whirlwind visit. I have twenty four hours to check out how another church in Dallas runs their Celebrate Recovery program. I am only in the first leg of that journey, the leg that happens to occur at 30,000 feet. You know, it isn’t too bad up here. The seats are pretty comfy. The snacks aren’t that bad. I am particularly fond of the little Biscoff cookies. Really they are just crunchy gingerbread, but Biscoff sounds so much more sophisticated. I have all the coffee and soda I care to drink, or should for that matter. The view. . .awesome. Clouds hang suspended below, seemingly joining heaven and earth. I could get used to it up here. Life isn’t too bad at 30,000 feet. In fact, it is quiet nice. I can see how some people can actually enjoy it, crave it even. But, I can’t stay at 30,000 feet forever.

I suppose there are a number of reasons. Fuel constraints, the limited ability of my backside to endure even this neatly apportioned coach seat, and the ever real possibility of Biscoff overdose will lead me back to the ground. While these are great reasons—“Yes, I will have another Biscoff!”—there is a greater reason that I will be setting my feet on the ground soon. That reason is that life, real life, doesn’t happen at 30,000 feet. Real life happens on ground level. Life isn’t found in awesome views and crunchy gingerbread, though I might want to give a shot at the later. Life is found in the noise and turmoil of the ground, in the sweaty jostling that makes up our every day. If I want to live, I have to leave 30,000 feet and put my feet back on the ground.

As I sit here pondering, wondering if the flight attendant will let me have another Biscoff, I recognize that I have spent a great deal of time of my life with Christ trying to live at 30,000 feet. There have only been a few 30,000 feet experiences in my journey with Christ, but I have spent a great deal of time trying to recreate them, as if those experiences were “real” and everything else was something less real. I am coming to realize that I can’t stay at 30,000 feet with Jesus, not and live. Real life isn’t found at 30,000 feet. Real life is found on ground level, in the moving and breathing, in the jostling, in the unresolved tensions, in the nitty-gritty of finding and being found that make up our every day.

I don’t know where I got the idea that real life was found at 30,000 feet. I certainly don’t remember anyone ever telling me that. Maybe it was the experience that made me crave for more. More likely it was the slow soaking in environments that try to help me recreate that experience. The music speeds up and then slows down telling me now is the time for that “intimate moment” with Jesus. The video draws on my emotions. The sermon plays to my desires. That’s just the weekly worship experience. That doesn’t even take into account all the retreats and conferences I have attended, or the books that tell me I can live a better, richer more fulfilled life in Christ. Think “How to live at 30,000 feet forever.” I could go on. You know, I don’t think we should have to. We can whittle away our time trying to climb to 30,000 feet, and for a few brief exhilarating moments we get there, or we can put our feet on the ground and find life, real life in the normal ground-level things that surround us. We can wish for the heights, or we can live, really live and rejoice in the routine, in the normal, in life not at 30,000 feet. What gives me encouragement in this approach is that it is the approach of God Himself. He left His 30,000 foot position and lived with us, in the jostling and nitty-gritty of life at the ground level. He didn’t call us to join Him. He came to join us, to join us at the ground level. In so doing He taught us where life was truly lived, and it isn’t at 30,000 feet.

A fellow traveler,

Blake
Spiritual Formation Pastor