"Hail" to the chief...

In the recent couple of years of my life I have had the unique experience of having several things happen to me and thinking, while it was happening, “Well, this is the end.” Or could be the end. I must have a purpose beyond myself otherwise I don’t suppose that I would be here right now to write this. In my past posts to this blogging website I’ve highlighted some of these occurrences as they manifested themselves on my cross-country motorcycle adventure but there were also times during my tenure in the Sudan where I realized that the level of danger in which I constantly existed provided enough threat that those thoughts entered my mind.

It is a curious thing to have such a thought run through your head. I can’t honestly say that my life ever really ‘flashed’ before my eyes, although there have been moments that happened in slow motion, or at least they appeared to. The minutes following such a juncture are where your life begins be recalled and you realize that in just a mere second all of your memories could have all been just the middle chapters in a story that now has a beginning and an ending. Thankfully, the last pages of my life don’t seem to have been written yet. There are more adventures I wish to live.

I suppose you can gauge where you are in your life as a man (I’m more comfortable with that perspective) by examining your reactions to such experiences. It would be a safe bet to assume that at my current stage of life I am exuding the ‘I am invincible’ attitude with a propensity for wanting to live on the edge. Later in life I guess I’ll be more toned down, especially when I have dependents. However, at this point I confess that I am slightly crazy and it appears that I am getting more so. It is indicated by responses to adverse situations.

My older brother recently entered the world of skydiving (he brought me along as described in an earlier post) and for the past several months has been working hard to train and become licensed and certified as a skydiver. Directing yourself to stand at the door of an airplane 12,500 feet above the earth and then to take the step of faith into literally nothing requires a certain amount of steel that not everybody possesses. Recently my brother had an experience on his 24th jump that brought him face to face with the reality that the afterlife is just a failed parachute away.

Due to a malfunction during the opening of his parachute while falling at 120mph and around 4000 – 4500 feet above ground he was left with a canopy that had significant parts of it that were tattered and ripped. He was forced to cut it away and open his reserve parachute. There are skydivers who have jumped multiple thousands of times and have never had to do that (comforting, isn’t it?). His training kicked in and he didn’t panic but did exactly what he needed to do. Kudos. What is his response? Get back in the plane and go again, the same day. Isn’t that cool?

I’m sure it wasn’t pleasant as it happened but I know that there was a part of him that was pleased, even as it was happening. I would call it an excited disbelief that this is really happening.

I had such an experience on Wednesday night. Thankfully I wasn’t plummeting to the earth but riding my motorcycle. Earlier in the evening I had attended a Bible study/church meeting that I am a part of. After the meeting I hung out with our group’s venerable ‘spiritual head’ and finally headed for home around midnight. In the distance a fantastic display of lightening set the sky on fire and I suspected that I would soon be experiencing whatever those storms had to offer.

I live about 10 miles outside of town down a delightfully windy mountain road. Great fun when dry but cautiously unnerving when wet. A quarter of the way home I began to feel drops and then the thunder began to outshout my motorcycle and the rushing wind. I slowed and rounded a corner and plunged into a wall of water. Instantly I was soaked and taunted by more thunder. The rain was huge and I was amazed as I watched it fall through the beam of my headlight. By this time I was crawling, using the reflectors in the middle of the road to guide me on account that the fog and rain were too thick to see anything else. Then I noticed larger falling objects and the sharp sting and thunk of something heavy.

I could feel the hail bouncing off of my helmet. I could especially feel it collide with my legs and arms and hands. It was tremendous. At this point I could no longer see the reflectors and it felt as if I were riding through a river. I stopped and put my feet down discovering a flood that rushed over my shoes. I was cold. It hurt.

A car pulled up alongside. The driver offered to let me sit in his car while the hail stopped. He was having trouble seeing enough to drive as the hail and rain were so thick. As it turned out I knew the driver from a few years back and he remembered me. Small world. The hail quit and I thanked him and climbed back outside proceeding to crawl forward again. Again the road was just not visible and I had difficulty imagining myself completing the four miles remaining between my location and the warmth and comfort of my parent’s home. So I opted to pull into the driveway of a friend of mine whose house was a mere hundred yards beyond me.

Robb Stewart and his wife Danielle had been up on account of the storm and dripping profusely I knocked and was let in. Dry clothes later Robb gave me a lift home and I was forced to leave my bike in their driveway. Even in the truck the road was difficult to navigate as the hail had shredded millions of leaves and they had been cast upon the pavement. It was a solid blanket.

How thankful I was to walk through my front door. Alhumdel’allah. In the midst of the storm and the lightening popping directly overhead I was not concerned for my welfare. Instead I was thinking about what a great adventure this was and how crazy I was to be out riding. It would have been real easy to just tap the break a little too hard and end up tangled in a tree. It would have been just as easy for the quarter sized hail (and larger) to come down and put out an eye. In spite of all that I was living in the moment and thoroughly enjoying every second. I don’t think that that would have been the case a few years ago. This time I didn’t think that it was the end and maybe I’m naïve but I never really felt as if I were in any great danger. Maybe that’s one of the reasons Samaritan’s Purse hires people like me to work in civil war zones…

For what it’s worth…