Hammer on Anvil '

Today was a big day for me, so I’d like to share a metaphor from my day. I’m in the process of training to fly in order to eventually become a commercial airline pilot. Today I flew solo for the first time. It’s considered a milestone in pilot training and I’m pretty excited.

There is a tradition in aviation that after a student’s first solo flight, his instructor cuts off the back of his shirt. No, I am not messing with you; I’m serious. When I first learned about this tradition, I was as perplexed as you probably are now. In order to find out what the heck was behind this strange tradition, I went to my generation’s ultimate source of knowledge – Wikipedia. According to Wiki….

In American aviation lore, the traditional removal of a new pilot's shirt tail is a sign of the instructor's new confidence in his student after successful completion of the 1st solo flight. In the days of tandem trainers, the student sat in the front seat, with the instructor behind. As there were often no radios in these early days of aviation, the instructor would tug on the student pilot's shirttail to get his attention, and then yell in his ear. A successful first solo flight is an indication that the student can fly without the instructor ("instructor-less" flight). Hence, there is no longer a need for the shirt tail, and it is cut off by the (often) proud instructor, and sometimes displayed as a trophy.

The tradition made much more sense to me after the explanation. Now for the metaphor.

In today’s world, independence is a thing highly valued, and rightly so. Many of our big milestones are centered around independence: our first steps, our first time talking, getting our driver’s license, etc. The only thing we need to be careful of is taking the idea that independence is good and applying it to our relationship with God. In terms of our relationship with God, dependence is the quality to be valued. To borrow from the aviation tradition in kind of a corny way, God is trying to pull on our shirt tails to get our attention, but we aren’t listening. In fact, all too often many of us forget about our dependence on God and we’re flying without our shirt tails. Every day we need to remind ourselves who is really in control.

“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” -- Galatians 2:20a