Moon-Shine

It was early enough to 'make the donuts' but the hat I was wearing wasn't that of a bakers'.  An extra few z's didn't come during the twenty-two minute minivan ride to the Jacksonville, North Carolina airport because bad classic rock on the radio kept my ears awake.  It was so early at Albert J. Ellis field that my good FO had to call a 1-800 number to Lockheed Martin (an FAA Flight Service Station contractor) to get a clearance out of this non-towered airport out 'in the sticks'.  Jacksonville, NC is a neat area, namely because there are plenty of proud Marines stationed at nearby Camp Jejune, not because of the very flat and forested geography with guaranteed humidity. 

We actually had to taxi away from the terminal so that 'Paul' could get cell phone reception that wouldn't drop his call.  After performing the "Flaps 8 Before Takeoff" checklist  I taxied the jet onto the runway while we performed the "Takeoff" checklist.  The mist became very noticeable in the bright runway lights and as I set takeoff thrust I wondered if there were any animals on the runway, none were to be encountered.  The mood in my brain seemed to match the scene - foggy a little.  Alertness really can't get too much better than that while hurtling down the runway at 5:25 AM.  As we climbed out over them, the approach lights lit up on the opposite end of the runway (runway 5, we took off runway 23) displayed through the mist gave a flat, two-dimensional appearance, and I was momentarily distracted from concentrating on our pitch attitude by the complete lack of depth perception.

Off into the black and gray, smooth and still night air we climbed, with the airplane symbol on our PFD (primary flight display) fully tucked into the inverted v-bars of the 'flight director'.  Shortly thereafter a quick climb in our light jet to 14,000 feet afforded my Co-Pilot and I a simply incredible view of the 'lesser great light' (above us at our two o'clock position shining brightly).  The full moon's light reflected across an undercast cloud layer 4,000 feet ahead and below us.  Cumulus clouds grew out of the smooth surface in sparse locations like unmoved boulders in a stereotyped Irish pasture.  Two different dark spots on the horizon displayed orange flashes, insistent but for which I'm thankful for pre-dawn warnings from nature to not fly into there, to not fly into there at all.  They were off to our left, by the coast anyway, and I was transfixed in gazing wonder about this suddenly mysterious moon-shine.  The following is a nice picture but an approximation of the scene we beheld.

From John 1:5: "And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it".  You might be aware that this is a reference to Jesus, of course, but I thought it has an alternate applicability here.  It's resonant to me in my soul that the spiritual truth of Jesus' light shining through the darkness has a physical counterpart in our moon, reflector of the sun.

Who or what does the moon shine for?  When it's hidden above a cloud layer and can't be seen by humans on terra firma?  When there's no one there at all?  "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands." Psalm 19:6  It shines to glorify God, and when I or someone else is there it shines for us, to display His glory to us! 

There are plenty of interesting facts regarding the moon, which lend toward thoughts of it's creation by a creator-God, not by evolution.  This site describes how evolutionary scientists are 'baffled' in explaining it's origin.  The appearance of the moon and it's effects on our planet which help sustain life are just another indicator of the reality behind the beauty we behold: that we may assume that whatever or whomever is behind the creation of the universe is as beautiful and wonderful as it is.

With a 29 1/2 day cycle, the moon is seemingly set in the sky to mark the passage of time, to mark the months. Ancient civilizations the world over have followed the lunar calender God made.  Here is a link to the Hebrew lunar calender and a schedule of Old Testament Israelite religious festivals and observances.  Many Jewish religious events were observed at the new moon, but two annual ones were set to occur at a full moon, or halfway through the month, the Passover Festival and the Feast of Tabernacles.

The new moon is when it shows just a sliver.  Half of the 29 1/2 day cycle is 14 3/4 days, so it is at that point when one would observe a full moon.  From Psalm 81:3 (NLT): "Blow the ram's horn at new moon, and again at full moon to call a festival!"  Numbers 28:16-17 and 29:12 set forth that the Passover Festival and the Feast of Tabernacles will start of the 15th of the month (first month for Passover, seventh month for Tabernacles, Hebrew lunar calender). 

I hope I haven't lost you yet.  I'm glossing over a few details, read the links if you'd like to be better informed concerning them.  The Passover is perhaps the one Jewish holiday Christians are most familiar with and revere as well.  We believe that the Passover sacrifice of the lamb, and the eating of it and the bread is prophetic of Jesus Christ.  Here are two websites (there are many) which teach more about Jesus Christ, The Passover Lamb: menorah.org and a page labeled "The Passover Prophecy and the Crucifixion".

The moon shines (reflects actually) His light for me, it does, and for His light I am grateful. It shines for me in the darkness, and in the daylight. It shines for you too.  I quote from a many played Matthew West song but it's a great one:

"I love you more than the sun
and the stars that I taught how to shine
You are mine, and you shine for me too.
I love you yesterday and today
And tomorrow, I'll say it again and again
I love you more."

I shine for Him too?  Yes, that's one of the many fringe benefits you get in having faith in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.  Thanks for reading again, and God Bless you!

How the Dutch Rolls

There we were in this early summer moment, relaxing in the smooth air at 31,000 feet, headed east in the sunshine toward Philadelphia. We had climbed out of Kansas City, Missouri about an hour before and had about one hour left to reach Philly. Our exact position was 230 miles west of Johnstown, ‘P.A.’ (the one that had THE flood). The 73 knot tailwind was helping to produce our ground speed (GS) of 522, or 8.7 miles a minute, or a mile about every seven seconds. The airspeed tape indicated about 210 knots, but because of the thin air at altitude, our jet’s true airspeed was 439, computed by our ADC’s (air data computers). Our speed relative to the speed of sound was .74, or ‘Mach point .74’. Our total weight at this moment was 48,700 lbs, 1,700 lbs greater than our maximum landing weight of 47,000 lbs. Each of our two engines were burning almost 1,400 lbs per hour. What would our weight be upon landing in Philly in one hour? Do your quick Pilot mental math before proceeding further.


It would be ‘fourty-five nine’ as I like to say, or fourty-five thousand, nine-hundred pounds. Our little CRJ was packed to the gills with people and bags, and some or most of our ’pax’ were sleeping, no doubt. The droning on of our turbofans and the 8,000 feet above sea level equivalent altitude in the cabin had a part in the that. And the natural back and forth slight banking of our ’airship’ probably did too. I took a few moment to observe and appreciate this rhythmic motion of the left wing behind me, smoothly moving up and down against the horizon. Wads of symmetrically oriented cotton ball cumulus floated by far below, and seemed to frame the scene for contemplation on why.

Why do the wings of my CRJ always do this, rock back and forth? It’s always done this from the first day I started flying it, but it always seems to do it with the autopilot engaged. I’ve looked back when hand flying (just for a couple seconds, mind you!) and the wing is as steady as my hand can be. Well, with the autopilot on I took a video with my camera; let’s see how it looks on that. Observe the hazy horizon behind the wing tip, and you can see that it’s lazily rocking in a bank to the left and right, and maybe just yawing forward a back a hair.

As near as I can tell, this is the ‘natural frequency’ of a CRJ, like a ship or boat that lists or yaws back and forth naturally. A On a dependents cruise of my brother’s ship, a Destroyer in the US Navy, I observed his ship listing (banking) left and right a few degrees at a time. It’s period (time to complete one cycle) lasted about 20 seconds. I myself am not an aerodynamics expert, but I am a good BS’er. I know a little, of course; you can’t hardly call yourself a jet pilot without knowing a little about the difference between straight wing airplanes and swept wing jets.

I asked my excellent and very capable First Officer, who just happens to have a degree in Mechanical/Aerospace Engineering. He said that it had to do with an imbalance of lift of that between the left and right wings, due to slightly changing relative wind the left and right wings experience.  He explained that a jet has a spanwise airflow, meaning that airflow over and under the wings doesn’t really flow straight across, it flows at an angle across it. Straight wing airplanes don’t have spanwise airflow over their wings, and quite a bit more stable in flight than swept wing planes.

Let’s go dutch! After looking at the video, some other videos online, and reading about it, I think I know what it is. What my jet is experiencing and counteracting is Dutch roll, a classic aerodynamic term and dynamic situation swept wing jets inherently have. Asymmetrical, spanwise airflow imparts a yawing moment, or yawing tendency, to the aircraft. Yaw is a rotational force around an aircrafts’ vertical axis. Yaw makes a jets’ nose rotate to the left or right about the center of gravity (the jet‘s balance point, located next the wing, approximately). When an aircraft yaws in one direction the aforementioned difference in relative wind and imbalance of lift between the wings occurs.

See this video for a good look at authentic undamped dutch roll.

Explained similarly, dutch roll begins with the aircraft yawing one direction, then banking in the same direction. The yaw produces more lift on the wing which has moved ahead of the other. This imbalance of lift then produces the banking tendency. Eventually the dipped wing will produce more lift than the higher wing because of a higher ‘angle of attack’ (another explanation I won’t go into here) than what the higher wing has, and the wings will start to return towards level.

A ‘yaw damper’ is a fancy but necessary piece of flight control equipment on swept wing jets. It will apply the rudder in the opposite direction to counteract yawing, but because of the delayed reaction of banking occurring after yawing and as a result of it, the left and right banks occur. This is my best estimation of what is happening. The jet ends up banking slightly to the left and right as the yaw damper dampens out these oscillations. Rudder applied into the slipstream will produce yaw first, then bank, as the forward wing (in a right yaw the left wing will be forward of the right wing) produces more lift than the other one.

This neat website (HOW IT FLIES) shows what's happening to the wings in tandem aerodynamically during dutch roll. The wingtips actually trace loops against the horizon in opposite directions. If the plane yaws left the left wingtip will yaw aft and bank downward, then yaw forward and bank upward to wings level as the dutch roll is counteracted with rudder applied by the yaw damper. During this period the opposite right wingtip will yaw forward and bank upward, then yaw backward and back downward to wings level. It actually is a motion that is more oval or circular shaped, due to the changing aerodynamic forces involved. If the plane yaws right the opposite wingtip motions will occur (its confusing, so I won’t explain, see the ‘websight’ for more ‘insight’).

This is another British video which shows the circular loops the wingtips trace during dutch roll.

Dutch roll can be a dangerous phenomenon, and it was in the early days of swept wing jet fighters and airliners. In 1956 during a Braniff 707 customer acceptance flight control was lost after exceeding Boeing's maximum dutch roll demonstration bank angle (with the yaw dampers off).  Three of the four engines were shed from the airframe before they performed an emergency landing on a river bed.  Spending time flying with the yaw damper totally disabled (jets have two of them) can be a real eye opener, and it's something we demonstrate in the flight simulator.  Yaw dampers are so critical that my jet isn't allowed to fly passengers if both of our yaw dampers are broken.

As I’m trying to finish this post I’m riding on an ‘advanced’ Airbus A319, the ‘fly by wire’ one. I look at the wingtip against the horizon, and it’s the steadiest one I’ve seen yet. It does move, however; with the aircraft responding quickly, almost immediately, to keep the wings level. The swaying and correcting looks like a matter of inches; it’s impressive to watch on an airliner with a 111 foot foot wingspan. I presume the Airbus is better at damping out unwanted yaw and bank because it has more advanced avionics in the form of the ‘fly by (computerized-digital) wire’ technology.

Readers, I know it's been a while since I've posted, but I've been busy putting the nuts and bolts together for my business selling logbook binders and paper for computer pilot logbooks.  It's been going good, a few have sold on flybystore.com (click here to see it) and I'm about to start my own website.  Summer is passing by as well, and I've had a challenging time of it flying, and am ready for the season to change.  Lastly, God is still good and I still feel led to glorify him and make Him known to others through my job, my writing, and everything else I do.

I can't let you escape without a comparison of dutch roll to our own lives.  Observe your life events and you'll likely see that disturbances in your life balance can cause other parts of your life to 'roll away'.  Control the yaw, or your directional stability, better, and the rolls will cease or be minimized.  Christ is the one true light in the darkness (John 1:4-8) who can and will draw you in his direction.  Keep it pointed toward His light and he'll be your very own 'yaw damper'.  Thanks for reading, and God bless you!

Happy Independence Day!

Freedom for your checked bags!!

On this July 4th, Happy Independence Day to you!  Thanks for about.com for this informative series of quotes from our Founding Fathers.  From the site, "These Christian quotes of the founding fathers will give you an overview of their strong moral and spiritual convictions which helped form the foundations of our nation and our government."  I haven't read through them all, but I will.  You might or might not be surprised by what Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson wrote.  Franklin had some skepticism regarding Christ and Jefferson famously had his own Bible, 'the Jefferson Bible', wherein he took out sections from the New Testament he didn't believe.  But it can be seen that they both believed in God's deity, power, and blessing. 

Our Country has certainly been greatly blessed, with the structure of our government and economy, and the resulting influence and prosperity we have.  We have all kinds of freedoms that others in our world don't.  One of the most precious ones is that we have the freedom to worship God as we choose, or not at all. 

The following quotes of our Founding Fathers are from the aforementioned about.com site:

George Washington

"While we are zealously performing the duties of good citizens and soldiers, we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of religion. To the distinguished character of Patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian."


--The Writings of Washington, pp. 342-343.



John Adams

2nd U.S. President and Signer of the Declaration of Independence

"Suppose a nation in some distant Region should take the Bible for their only law Book, and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited! Every member would be obliged in conscience, to temperance, frugality, and industry; to justice, kindness, and charity towards his fellow men; and to piety, love, and reverence toward Almighty God ... What a Eutopia, what a Paradise would this region be."

--Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, Vol. III, p. 9.

"The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity. I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God."

--Adams wrote this on June 28, 1813, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson.

"The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever."

--Adams wrote this in a letter to his wife, Abigail, on July 3, 1776.



Thomas Jefferson

3rd U.S. President, Drafter and Signer of the Declaration of Independence

"God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the Gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever; That a revolution of the wheel of fortune, a change of situation, is among possible events; that it may become probable by Supernatural influence! The Almighty has no attribute which can take side with us in that event."

--Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XVIII, p. 237.

"I am a real Christian – that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus Christ."

--The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, p. 385.



John Hancock

1st Signer of the Declaration of Independence

"Resistance to tyranny becomes the Christian and social duty of each individual. ... Continue steadfast and, with a proper sense of your dependence on God, nobly defend those rights which heaven gave, and no man ought to take from us."

--History of the United States of America, Vol. II, p. 229.



Benjamin Franklin

Signer of the Declaration of Independence and Unites States Constitution

"Here is my Creed. I believe in one God, the Creator of the Universe. That He governs it by His Providence. That He ought to be worshipped.

That the most acceptable service we render to him is in doing good to his other children. That the soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental points in all sound religion, and I regard them as you do in whatever sect I meet with them.

As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the system of morals and his religion, as he left them to us, is the best the world ever saw, or is likely to see;

But I apprehend it has received various corrupting changes, and I have, with most of the present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity; though it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the truth with less trouble. I see no harm, however, in its being believed, if that belief has the good consequence, as probably it has, of making his doctrines more respected and more observed; especially as I do not perceive, that the Supreme takes it amiss, by distinguishing the unbelievers in his government of the world with any peculiar marks of his displeasure."

--Benjamin Franklin wrote this in a letter to Ezra Stiles, President of Yale University on March 9, 1790.



Samuel Adams


Signer of the Declaration of Independence and Father of the American Revolution

"And as it is our duty to extend our wishes to the happiness of the great family of man, I conceive that we cannot better express ourselves than by humbly supplicating the Supreme Ruler of the world that the rod of tyrants may be broken to pieces, and the oppressed made free again; that wars may cease in all the earth, and that the confusions that are and have been among nations may be overruled by promoting and speedily bringing on that holy and happy period when the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ may be everywhere established, and all people everywhere willingly bow to the sceptre of Him who is Prince of Peace."

--As Governor of Massachusetts, Proclamation of a Day of Fast, March 20, 1797.



James Madison

4th U.S. President

"Cursed be all that learning that is contrary to the cross of Christ."

--America's Providential History, p. 93.



James Monroe

5th U.S. President

"When we view the blessings with which our country has been favored, those which we now enjoy, and the means which we possess of handing them down unimpaired to our latest posterity, our attention is irresistibly drawn to the source from whence they flow. Let us then, unite in offering our most grateful acknowledgements for these blessings to the Divine Author of All Good."

--Monroe made this statement in his 2nd Annual Message to Congress, November 16, 1818.



John Quincy Adams

6th U.S. President

"The hope of a Christian is inseparable from his faith. Whoever believes in the divine inspiration of the Holy Scriptures must hope that the religion of Jesus shall prevail throughout the earth. Never since the foundation of the world have the prospects of mankind been more encouraging to that hope than they appear to be at the present time. And may the associated distribution of the Bible proceed and prosper till the Lord shall have made 'bare His holy arm in the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God' (Isaiah 52:10)."

--Life of John Quincy Adams, p. 248.



William Penn

Founder of Pennsylvania

"I do declare to the whole world that we believe the Scriptures to contain a declaration of the mind and will of God in and to those ages in which they were written; being given forth by the Holy Ghost moving in the hearts of holy men of God; that they ought also to be read, believed, and fulfilled in our day; being used for reproof and instruction, that the man of God may be perfect. They are a declaration and testimony of heavenly things themselves, and, as such, we carry a high respect for them. We accept them as the words of God Himself."

--Treatise of the Religion of the Quakers, p. 355.



Roger Sherman

Signer of the Declaration of Independence and United States Constitution

"I believe that there is one only living and true God, existing in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, the same in substance equal in power and glory. That the scriptures of the old and new testaments are a revelation from God, and a complete rule to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy him. That God has foreordained whatsoever comes to pass, so as thereby he is not the author or approver of sin. That he creates all things, and preserves and governs all creatures and all their actions, in a manner perfectly consistent with the freedom of will in moral agents, and the usefulness of means. That he made man at first perfectly holy, that the first man sinned, and as he was the public head of his posterity, they all became sinners in consequence of his first transgression, are wholly indisposed to that which is good and inclined to evil, and on account of sin are liable to all the miseries of this life, to death, and to the pains of hell forever.

I believe that God having elected some of mankind to eternal life, did send his own Son to become man, die in the room and stead of sinners and thus to lay a foundation for the offer of pardon and salvation to all mankind, so as all may be saved who are willing to accept the gospel offer: also by his special grace and spirit, to regenerate, sanctify and enable to persevere in holiness, all who shall be saved; and to procure in consequence of their repentance and faith in himself their justification by virtue of his atonement as the only meritorious cause.

I believe a visible church to be a congregation of those who make a credible profession of their faith in Christ, and obedience to him, joined by the bond of the covenant.

I believe that the souls of believers are at their death made perfectly holy, and immediately taken to glory: that at the end of this world there will be a resurrection of the dead, and a final judgement of all mankind, when the righteous shall be publicly acquitted by Christ the Judge and admitted to everlasting life and glory, and the wicked be sentenced to everlasting punishment."

--The Life of Roger Sherman, pp. 272-273.



Benjamin Rush

Signer of the Declaration of Independence and Ratifier of the U.S. Constitution

"The Gospel of Jesus Christ prescribes the wisest rules for just conduct in every situation of life. Happy they who are enabled to obey them in all situations!"

--The Autobiography of Benjamin Rush, pp. 165-166.

"Christianity is the only true and perfect religion, and that in proportion as mankind adopts its principles and obeys its precepts, they will be wise and happy."

--Essays, Literary, Moral, and Philosophical, published in 1798.

"I know there is an objection among many people to teaching children doctrines of any kind, because they are liable to be controverted. But let us not be wiser than our Maker.

If moral precepts alone could have reformed mankind, the mission of the Son of God into all the world would have been unnecessary. The perfect morality of the Gospel rests upon the doctrine which, though often controverted has never been refuted: I mean the vicarious life and death of the Son of God."

--Essays, Literary, Moral, and Philosophical, published in 1798.



John Witherspoon

Signer of the Declaration of Independence, Clergyman and President of Princeton University

"While we give praise to God, the Supreme Disposer of all events, for His interposition on our behalf, let us guard against the dangerous error of trusting in, or boasting of, an arm of flesh ... If your cause is just, if your principles are pure, and if your conduct is prudent, you need not fear the multitude of opposing hosts.

What follows from this? That he is the best friend to American liberty, who is most sincere and active in promoting true and undefiled religion, and who sets himself with the greatest firmness to bear down profanity and immorality of every kind.

Whoever is an avowed enemy of God, I scruple not to call him an enemy of his country."

--Sermon at Princeton University, "The Dominion of Providence over the Passions of Men," May 17, 1776.



Alexander Hamilton

Signer of the Declaration of Independence and Ratifier of the U.S. Constitution

"I have carefully examined the evidences of the Christian religion, and if I was sitting as a juror upon its authenticity I would unhesitatingly give my verdict in its favor. I can prove its truth as clearly as any proposition ever submitted to the mind of man."

--Famous American Statesmen, p. 126.



Patrick Henry

Ratifier of the U.S. Constitution

"It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here."

--The Trumpet Voice of Freedom: Patrick Henry of Virginia, p. iii.

"The Bible ... is a book worth more than all the other books that were ever printed."

--Sketches of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry, p. 402.



John Jay

1st Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court and President of the American Bible Society

"By conveying the Bible to people thus circumstanced, we certainly do them a most interesting kindness. We thereby enable them to learn that man was originally created and placed in a state of happiness, but, becoming disobedient, was subjected to the degradation and evils which he and his posterity have since experienced.

The Bible will also inform them that our gracious Creator has provided for us a Redeemer, in whom all the nations of the earth shall be blessed; that this Redeemer has made atonement "for the sins of the whole world," and thereby reconciling the Divine justice with the Divine mercy has opened a way for our redemption and salvation; and that these inestimable benefits are of the free gift and grace of God, not of our deserving, nor in our power to deserve."

--In God We Trust—The Religious Beliefs and Ideas of the American Founding Fathers, p. 379.

"In forming and settling my belief relative to the doctrines of Christianity, I adopted no articles from creeds but such only as, on careful examination, I found to be confirmed by the Bible."

--American Statesman Series, p. 360.

Piling on the Pres

Starting out writing this, I’m commuting home from a four day trip, both sides un-commutable. Yesterday started relatively early, with a 6:30 AM van ride to the airport in Newberg, New York, near West Point US Army Officer Academy, where President Obama spoke Saturday before we arrived. There were no signs left from the Secret Service personnel, of whom the van driver said had been staying in the hotel all week, and I had a good and needed rest for our long day of Sunday flying.

With a friendly Co-Pilot and Flight Attendant, we made our way through almost eight hours of flying, which entailed six flights and twelve hours to perform it in. Newberg-Philadelphia-Louisville-Philadelphia-Washington-Rochester-Washington was on the agenda, but a low pressure weather system and the forecast east winds and relatively low cloud ceiling in Philly promised to slow us down. My First Officer had plans to meet his wife in Milwaukee, to spend the night there before heading to Charlotte the next morning. With the delays in Philadelphia we were expecting, it was questionable whether he could catch the last flights from Washington to Philadelphia. He commutes from Green Bay, Wisconsin, and is a fellow brother in Christ. We had a good conversation about some of the particulars of Protestant Christian theology, and enjoyed flying together.

Our first two flights arrived in Philly and “Loua-Vule” on time. Now we just had to go through Philadelphia one more time, and we wouldn’t expect any delays in and out of Washington. In Philadelphia, when the winds are from the east, the airport runway layout can’t accept the same amount of departure and arrival traffic as it would normally. This can create major ATC delays, especially for traffic inbound to Philadelphia. Our scheduled departure time out of Louisville was 11:35 AM, and Louisville clearance delivery had given us a ‘wheels up’ takeoff time of 1:01 PM. We had time to hang out some, eat lunch, and talk about our commuting plans. I couldn’t make it home even if we arrived in DC on time, our Flight Attendant, a new one but a good one (she had flown for a regional based in Atlanta previously) could still make her commute flight even if we were a couple hours late, and my Co-Pilot was scheming and trying to figure out a plan to catch his last flight available in record time. It seemed we would arrive in DC at about 7:30 PM, and that’s when the last flight to Milwaukee was.

We pushed back without three missing passengers in Louisville, in order to meet the 1:00 PM takeoff time. Just then, ATC surprised us with a new delay, a 2:05 PM takeoff time. No! We had a couple options: taxi out and hope for a shortened delay, or wait to see if our three missing passengers would make it back to the gate. We could board them on our plane, taxi out, and still make the new 2:05 PM takeoff slot. In the interest of providing good customer service (this is a customer service business, despite what some of my Co-Pilot’s seem to feel), we started our engines and taxied the thirty yards back to the gate to board our three lost passengers. In actuality, we lost one passenger, who had said ‘enough’ and got off our jet to travel another day, and we put on four, for a gain of three and a ‘full boat’ back to Philly. The ‘circus music’ had started playing, because whenever a plane returns to the gate, one-third of our pax ask the Flight Attendant the litany of ‘will I still make my connection?’ type questions, and they were doing it now. Dealing with those issues is the Gate Agent’s job, and it’s a tough one in this situation. They generally make an announcement in the cabin (I asked her to this time) that ‘NOW is the time to leave the flight if you want to, that this aircraft will leave the gate again and not come back.’

We got our new passengers on board and just as we were closing up, ATC notified us that the ground delay program had been canceled, along with our 2:05 PM takeoff delay. We were released to Philly, and in quick order we taxied and took off. As we broke ground I wondered if that passenger we lost saw us climbing out into the blue Louisville sky.

Fast forward four days later: I’m commuting again back to work, trying to go through Chicago.  Before my first of two flights to get me to Washington, Chicago had a ground stop issued by ATC for “VIP movement” (President Obama). My Sioux Falls-Chicago flight was now delayed till 7:15 PM instead of 6:30 PM, and with a scheduled 45 minute connection to Washington on a normal day, I knew I'd be running for it. And I literally was, after seeing on the departure monitor that my flight was delayed by five minutes, and that many others were as well. "Can't you do something, Mr. Obama, without displeasing someone?"

I caught my breath in my window seat and our Airbus taxied out for Washington National.  Leaving Chicago, I’m transfixed by what I see. We’ve turned to the east just after breaking ground in smooth air, and the vast, expansive grid of greater Chicago spreads out in the window in that appealing orange halogen color the street lights have. Miles and miles of it are broken up occasionally by the stray winding expressway with white and red lit drivers making their way to where they’re going. The famous Chicago skyline is now ahead and to the right, with the (former) Sears Tower and the Hancock Tower framing the ends of it. Oddly, downtown and Lake Michigan seems to be backlight tonight. After closer observation and some scuddy clouds clear out of the way, it can plainly be seen that a full moon is out tonight, shining it’s white, reflected light on the calm, black surface of Lake Michigan. It casts a white, milky beam across the water, seemingly all the way to Indiana and the Notre Dame ‘capital’ at South Bend.

I am reminded that scenes like this one, which I first enjoyed while flying standby as a passenger on American Airlines as a kid, really make an impact on me. I really enjoy the beauty the skies can have, I guess you could say my eyes behold it. With the distractions and stresses of life, it’s can be easy to overlook the beautiful things, whether it’s in the sky or in your personal or family life. As the sky goes, maybe I’ve been doing some overlooking lately. But it is now thunderstorm season, and I know there will be plenty to appreciate soon! (And to be wary of)

Speaking of which, it’s a convenient time to transition back to the previous trip's Louisville departure to Philadelphia. Soon we’re climbing to our cruising altitude of 29,000 feet (“Flight Level two niner zero”). In blue sky and sunshine, my First Officer turns on the radar, and increases the range to 80 miles, then 160 miles. The tilt is low and the gain is turned up, but the screen barely shows any green returns, and that’s probably from the ground. The white, wispy clouds ahead, with a few curved, more solid looking bumps bulging slightly above them, indicate that we’ll probably have to do some deviating from our course line ahead, in spite of the clean radar returns.

We’re just not close enough to it yet; when we get within about 40-60 miles some good returns start showing up, the worst color they show is yellow. The view out the windscreen compels us to ask ATC for deviations, even if the radar was blank. The cumulonimbus tops are only two to three thousand feet above us, it looks like, but in reality they are probably four to six thousand feet higher. The tops look relatively flat, for thunderstorms, but looks can be deceptive. I see a bolt out into the burning blue sky out of one of them in front of us, confirming that these puppies can still bite. By this time I’ve been trying to ask center for a heading of 15, now 20 degrees left to avoid this buildup in front of us. The center controller I’ve been trying to check in with has been busy handling other airline traffic, and now we’re 15 miles closer to this storm than when we started calling. Another 30 seconds to a minute of this and my FO and I agree that we’re turning left, no matter what.

We could make it through it OK, but it would be constant moderate turbulence at the least, possibly severe occasionally, with icing in the tops of the cumulus formations, and a chance of lightning and wind shear with the turbulence. Not good for the pax or the Flight Attendant, and definitely not good customer service. The controller finally responds and serves us with an approval to “deviate left as required, direct Gordonsville (GVE) when able”.

Overall, it’s a good primer for the now-here thunderstorm season. A broad layer of wispy clouds stretches from left to right. As my Co-Pilot has the autopilot finish the turn to make our first of several heading deviations for buildups, we confer with each other, and agree that our course to the left, mostly in the clear, is better than to the right of the cumulonimbus. On the radar, another yellow spot, the biggest one, is now plainly seen; if we had deviated to the right we would have less room to deal with this cell than if we had turned left. Looking out the window, this largest storm cloud is mostly obscured by this thin layer of clouds previously mentioned. If we were a thousand feet lower, this situation would meet the classic definition of an embedded thunderstorm; the wispy clouds leftover from previous buildups wouldn‘t let us visually see the danger ahead! We later fly through some of these wispy areas, they are generally fairly smooth, with occasional light chop and nothing else.

We made it through the rest fairly unscathed day after arriving in Philadelphia.  Philly to Washington to Rochester to Washington went off without a hitch, minus our standard wait for ramp agents to park our jet in DC, both times.  However, we didn't make up enough time to improve my FO's chances of going to Milwaukee.

With my FO a little dejected, I was walking with him to the crew room when he spied the departure monitor board, and saw that he might have one last chance to make it to Milwaukee, via an American Eagle flight from Washington to Chicago, then the last United Express flight of the night to Milwaukee. He would be running for it, but we both thought he just might make it. He ran off to the gate, just like I would in the future tonight, but I don’t know if he made it or not. If President Obama didn’t get in his way, he was probably fine! I took his flight bag back to the crew room and then myself to Chipotle for a good, needed dose of burrito. I made it home the next morning, starting this post on the way.
 
I'm giving our President Obama a little bit of a hard time.  But I'm just poking fun at everyone else who seems to be.  Lately he's been taking flak from all sides, not just Republicans.  I think his current troubles are more politically partisan based and stem from a lack of PR control rather than lack of performance.  It's true that far left liberals haven't gotten what they've wanted from Obama, but neither have right wing conservatives.  Is not preventing the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster and spill, and performing an inadaquate leak stoppage and cleanup, really his fault?  No, the Deepwater Horizon disaster is not Obama's 'Katrina'. 
 
Excuse me for getting too political, perhaps.  I just feel that we should have a minimum amount of respect for our political leaders, no matter how much we disagree with them.  We should pray for them, it's in the Bible too: "I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone— for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth." (I Timothy 2:1-4).
 
And the Bible teaches that we should pay our appropriate taxes to the government: : "Render, therefore, unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God, the things that are God's" are Jesus' words from Matthew 22:21.
 
That's it for now.  Thanks for reading my blog.

Wet laptops & reflective thoughts

(This post was originally started about nine days ago)


I just finished a five day sequence and am flying home on United in economy plus, fighting the urge to take a nap. I’m pleased because my new laptop isn’t dead after all. Last night in Syracuse, New York, I was trying to finish my schedule bid for June, talking to my Mother on the phone (Mother’s day you know) when I accidentally splashed water on this keyboard I’m typing on. Doh!

I dried it off immediately with towels but there were droplets in between the keys. Not thinking, and especially not googling, I dried the keyboard further using the hotel hair drier and my breath to blow the droplets away from the keyboard.

It worked, for a while. Soon the number 8 key starting ghosting and repeating, and after a lengthy, second hair drying, the 0 key did too, and many keys didn’t work at all. Panicked and anxious, I finished my schedule bid on the hotel computer, worried that I had ruined my laptop by blowing the water drops into the keys and driving moisture into the keyboard using the hair dryer.

After bidding, ‘google’ said in one entry to never use a hair dryer to dry off your keyboard, as it will drive moisture further into it, and the heat and static can cause electrical problems with a laptop as well. But there were many other sites which mistakenly, in my opinion, suggested using a hair drier. The advice I now trust after a liquid spill on a laptop is not to use a hair drier, but to turn your laptop off immediately, dry it off with towels, turn it upside down to let liquid drain, and put it in the sun or warm, dry air for a while, remove the battery, and leave it off for 24 hours. I removed the battery, let it air dry overnight, then put it out in the sun during all five of our flights today (with it off, lest you‘re thinking about that NW crew). The air is pretty dry in an airliner, and the sunlight coming through the flight deck windows can bring in a fair amount of warmth. That combination draws the moisture out of a laptop fairly well, because after finishing scheduled day of six hours of flying, it works again, and every key is fine.

We had a ‘nice’ 4:45 AM show time at the airport, so considering I had this secondary problem to contend with, in addition to the one of getting a good amount and good quality of rest, I slept for five hours relatively soundly. Giving your worries up to God in prayer does help, and I did the best I could doing that before lights out last night.

I am tired with a capital T at the end of this five day sequence of flying. Today we flew from Syracuse to Philadelphia to Detroit to Washington to Norfolk to Washington, and were on duty for nine hours and fifty minutes, from 4:45 AM till 2:35 PM. This was the fourth early showtime I’ve had this sequence, and the second one at 4:45 AM in a row. And the best part of it is it’s all legal per the FAA’s rest rules and our labor contract. But is it safe?  It could be even safter.

I don't want to scare you, but this is the reality that many flight crews face.  However, it's much easier on pilots than in the early air-mail and airline days, when airplanes were unreliable, the navigation technology and avionics were crude, weather forecasting was more like weather guessing, the working rules were scarce, and the accident record was reflected in all these shortcomings.  It is relatively safe, in that there are two pilots (better than one), our aircraft is highly automated (hand flying five legs would be exhausting), and our work is highly standardized and routine.  The US does have the safest transportation system in the world.

On another note, I haven’t posted for a while, and don’t have a concise and readily available reason as to why. I have a couple ideas I’m working on, and a new phone which will enable me to do better and more frequent twitter (I’m “crossky” on twitter) updates, with pictures, on the fly, so to speak (literally). Technology and social networking, a’la ‘community’ is a subject I’ve been pondering. Because of social networking, the way we have community with each other in this era is changing, and sometimes I wonder if it’s for the better or not. I’m still trying to correlate it to flying somehow, but it will come.

Community with God, and better community with each other, is one of the main reasons the Son of God came to earth in human form. I’m not the best at fostering and keeping community with others in a loving Christian manner (as Christ teaches), but I kind of think that concern has been on my heart and mind lately. There are other signs I’ve seen that God is still working in my life, and when I get to a quiet place to reflect on that, it feels good. God is good, all the time! All the time, God is good! Thanks again for reading the blog.

Gut Check

He is risen, He is risen indeed! I say it to others and others say it to me. In my past life, in the next few days and weeks after Easter I typically would slowly revert to living like I did before, only feeling the literal meaning of Jesus’ resurrection every so often, instead of every glorious day. I wish we could celebrate our Lord’s resurrection every week. Wait a minute, we do: Sunday is the day of the Lord, the risen Lord. Christians (except for Seventh Day Adventists) observe the Sabbath day as Sunday instead of Saturday, honoring the fact that Jesus rose from the dead on a Sunday morning, after the Jewish Sabbath (Friday night to Saturday night). Realizing that I’m still human helps me to understand how rediscovering ‘the joy of my salvation’ keeps it fresh in my heart.

Luke, a gentile (non-Jewish person) and physician, and close friend of the apostle Paul, wrote the gospel of Luke and the sequel to it, the book of Acts, during A.D. 61-64. Acts picks up where the gospels left off, and documents the rapid growth and events of the early Christian church after the resurrected Jesus Christ, in bodily and glorified form, appeared to many disciples and followers.

What occurs in the book of Acts is exactly what one would expect from resurrection witnesses empowered with a conviction of the mind and the presence of the Holy Spirit (which Jesus promised them). The apostles act boldly, teaching, preaching, performing miracles, and endure much persecution, suffering, and dying for God‘s glory. The church grows rapidly as a result.

Here are just a few events in the book of Acts: the outpouring of the Holy Spirit comes at Pentecost; the gospel is preached to the Jews and the Gentiles; the church grows rapidly in spite of resistance and persecution of it; Saul (a zealous Jew who persecutes Christians) is met by a blinding Jesus on the road to Damascus, believes, and is renamed Paul; and Paul and others go on missionary journeys as far as Greece and Rome.

Acts is certainly a book of action, and a perfect sequel to the gospels. It’s an historical ‘gut-check’: it’s stories and history are evidence for an affirmative answer to the question ‘did Jesus really rise from the dead?‘ Instinctively, it makes sense. The followers of ‘The Way’ wouldn’t have been willing to endure the persecution and suffering they did if the resurrection wasn’t true.

Christians pronounce that Jesus is risen: we say it and believe it, but do we keep it hidden? Do we act like we really believe it so others can see our faith? The stories in Acts can be used as evidence of the new church’s knowledge of the truth, resulting in the bolstering of one’s faith in Jesus.

I’m reading through Acts this month, and am behind the reading schedule in my Bible. So often it seems things don’t happen on my schedule, they happen on God’s schedule. But that’s the way it should be. After a week of good vacation and getting the taxes done, I’m having an enjoyable three day trip in sunny weather. It’s the third morning in Jacksonville, North Carolina, and I’ll be flying OAJ-CLT-LEX-CLT-DCA today (Charlotte, Lexington, and Washington).

We had an overnight in Lexington the first night of this trip. I liked it there, it was lushly green, with absolutely beautiful tree lined, hilly horse farms and meadows, complete with painted wooden fences. The folks are friendly there with true southern hospitality, and I had a good jog over to the nearby ‘UK’ (University of Kentucky).

However, in spite of the niceness of Lexington, I can’t go there without thinking of the tragedy of Comair 5191, on August 27, 2006.

The Delta Connection flight to Atlanta attempted to takeoff on 3,500 foot long runway 26, instead of 7,003 foot long runway 22. Forty-nine out of fifty souls on board died after the jet struck a fence and trees while struggling to get airborne beyond the short runway.

They attempted takeoff on the wrong runway because the Captain steered the jet onto it by mistake. The taxiway route to the runway offered the crew an opportunity to take a left turn at two locations. The first left turn was onto the ill fated short runway, the second left turn, a little further down the taxiway, was onto the correct runway.

It can be argued that there were many contributing factors for this accident. The control tower controller didn’t watch their takeoff attempt, information about the airport wasn’t supplied appropriately to the crew, the layout of the taxiways and runways could potentially trick pilots into using the wrong runway, the Captain didn’t get good rest the night before, and the crew engaged in non-essential conversation while the plane was taxiing. However, in spite of all these factors, in the end it was the pilots responsibility to make sure they were taking off on a runway that had adequate length.

What prevented either pilot from noticing they were on the wrong runway? Apparently, they didn’t check that the magnetic direction the plane indicated while on the runway was the same direction of their intended runway for takeoff (260 degrees instead of 220 degrees).  More fundamentally and less technically, apparently they didn't do a gut check: they didn’t ask internally or to the other pilot ‘does this feel right, is everything OK?’  Professionals in all fields of work perform ‘gut-checks’ routinely. ’ Experience is the best teacher’, and it teaches them to safeguard their work just by being aware and sensing when something is amiss and out of the ordinary. Gut checks are vitally important when operating at less than full mental capacity, as when fatigued, distracted, or both.

The paradox is that at the very time when it’s most critical to maintain a good situational awareness, when fatigued or distracted, is the very time when it’s most difficult to do so. I know this from experience.

The two most humbling mistakes (and they were very humbling) I’ve made in my airline career have occurred while I was taxiing the plane on the ground, and I believe they happened in part because I didn’t perform a gut-check. I wasn’t able to because I was tired and fatigued, rushed, and too distracted in non-essential (to the flight) conversation with my Co-Pilot on the ground. In the industry this is known as ‘violating sterile cockpit’, and it is big on the FAA’s hit list. Airline pilots are to observe a sterile cockpit - no conversation that doesn’t pertain to the safe operation of the flight - anytime the plane is moving on the ground or anytime below 10,000 feet in flight.

Applying this line of thought to this accident, I believe that short term fatigue and distraction from violating sterile cockpit helped to prevent this crew from taxiing to the correct runway, and to prevent them from aborting the takeoff before it was too late.

I examined the cockpit voice recording transcript briefly, and the crew (mainly the First Officer) did ‘violate sterile cockpit‘, but not to a gross extent, in my opinion. However, lack of focus is possible when distracted by emotion or thought about a non-essential conversation, even if its a short one. I have seen this occur to me numerous times, and I believe it is one of the main considerations for the sterile cockpit rule. What I mean is that’s how I think the mechanism works: while a mistake can occur during the moment sterile cockpit is violated, it can also occur afterwards. Non-essential conversation can induce a type of lingering distraction to pilots during a period of flight operations that is critical to the safety of flight.

I mentioned fatigue as another characteristic which reduces the ability to maintain situational awareness. Unfortunately, the Captain of the accident flight didn’t get good rest the night before, due to his wife and two infants spending the night in the hotel with him. He complained on the CVR about his lack of sleep to his Co-Pilot. I was fatigued when I had both of my problems aforementioned on the ground, the first after a short night of sleep after commuting in to my base for an early showtime, and the second after a long duty day full of schedule changes. When fatigued, one simply doesn’t have the ability to perform to the same level as when not. Slowing down the pace at which one completes tasks and adhering to SOP’s (standard operating procedures) are two ways to counteract the effects of fatigue.

This accident, like other airline accidents and incidents recently, exhibit symptoms of a lack of flight discipline, which stems from a lack of professionalism. Frankly, others I've talked to are like me, we never expected Comair, a regional airline whose pilots always had a reputation for being true professionals, to have an accident like this.  If Comair could have this accident, any regional airline could.  This problem of a lack of professionalism is endemic in our industry, and it seems to be difficult to get across to all pilots the insidiousness of it. The negative reaction seen at times involves an impulse to blame airline management for poor schedules and reduced pay, instead of examining their own personal standards of professionalism and flight discipline. Poor schedules and reduced pay are problems the pilot unions continue to battle to win improvements on, but these issues are no excuse to absolve pilots from their duty and responsibility to safely transport the flying public with the highest standards possible.

OK, short rant over. In review, fatigue and distraction both reduce pilots ability to ‘trap errors’ and perform a gut-check. Performing a gut-check is good thing to do in aviation or any industry:

- be in tune to your instincts, trust them, and follow them

- when fatigued and/or distracted, the ability to perform a gut-check is diminished

- when fatigued and distracted is the time when SOP’s are the most important to follow to the letter. Adhering to a checklist, callout, or procedure when fatigued and/or distracted makes it more likely than otherwise that a critical item won’t be missed.

I got a little academic, but this is the way I see it, and I make no apologies for it. The opportunity to learn and lessen the likelihood of more tragedy and loss of life makes it worthwhile. Thanks again for reading my blog.

PS: In case you're curious, I continue to battle against fatigue and distraction I encounter on the flight deck.  After I've made mistakes of the type which in the past I would point to others and say quietly "I could never do something that silly", I operate more conservatively and with better flight discipline than I ever have as a pilot.  I still learn new things about the airplane and how to better perform my job, and I hope I always will.

Good Friday sense

It’s day five of flying for me, tonight will be night number six away from home. I’m spending the day in a Hampton Inn in Greenville, SC, where everything is green, or greening up in the early spring. Tonight I’ll fly from GSP to Charlotte, only about a twenty minute flight maximum, then deadhead back to DC for the night. I miss my wife and girls, and will be home tomorrow afternoon, for a week of vacation and four days extra scheduled off, away from the skies. So, two days before our Easter holiday, it’s a good Friday, in fact it is THE Good Friday, and I’ll be writing about that subject in a paragraph or two.

The first couple of days of this trip we endured a lot of turbulence in the clouds, immersed and enveloped ‘inside the lampshade‘, in white and gray. Climbing and descending to find a smoother altitude for our ‘peeps’ didn’t help much, so we usually just slowed down the plane and endured it. My Co-Pilots and I had to fight gusty crosswinds on takeoff and landing. We airline pilots generally like the challenge of a crosswind, passengers generally don’t. Not seeing the blue sky or sun for entire flights is strange at times. It still intrigues me to navigate using only our instruments on the flight display screens in front of us, then pop out of ragged clouds and mist with the runway right in front of us, canted at an angle, due to our ‘crab angle’ into the wind.

On the second day we were flying north over western New York, destination Toronto, Ontario, Canada, when we seemed to reach the end of the endless clouds. It started clearing over Buffalo, New York, as center had us descend to 10,000 feet. I got out my camera because I knew Niagara Falls was coming up, and it looked as if we would get a chance to photograph it. This is from two miles above the ground with a zoomed lens, but it’s still very impressive.

I think it’s only fitting that I quote Jesus’ from John 7:37 (ESV) here: “Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” Wow, what a river of living water, indeed. I will see it up close in person, someday.

Below is a picture of the river and lakes of the Niagara Falls region, this was taken while we were headed south, from Toronto back to Philadelphia. In the foreground is Lake Ontario, in the background is Lake Erie. That little puff of white is the mist rising from the Canadian, Horseshoe falls side. The river is the Niagara river, and it flows from south to north, background to foreground, from Lake Erie towards Lake Ontario. Unless you’re geography limited, like I was about this area until a few years ago, it doesn’t make sense without an explanation. Here's a google map of the same area.  It’s still tricky for me to make sense of it, of a river that flows from south to north, and not only that but a humongous waterfall over seemingly flat country. But with a little knowledge and explanation, it does make sense. Rivers all over the earth flow from a higher elevation to a lower elevation.

It can be hard to make sense of Jesus’ sacrifice of his life on the cross too. With a little knowledge and explanation it begins to make sense too. God loves you! God loves us, every one of us, and He wants to have relationship with us, now and for eternity. Our sin (which is turning away from God by our thoughts, words, actions, and deeds) separates us from God, because God is Holy and perfect, and cannot and will not tolerate sin in his presence. As a matter of fact, God will destroy whatever is sinful in his pure presence. But God made a way, from the beginning, to ‘fix’ our imperfectedness and restore our relationship with him. Jesus. He said in John 16:13 “there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

Many skeptics of Christianity accept that a man named Jesus Christ of Nazareth was crucified on a cross, but they draw the line there. But without Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, his crucifixion doesn’t make sense at all. The resurrection is absolutely essential to Christianity. But don’t just take my word for it, feel free to check out these three links, by others much smarter than me about the subject: No Christianity with the Resurrection, Christianity is Resurrection, and Resurrection essential to Christianity.

Without Jesus rising from the dead:

-His death on the cross was in vain, and unable to defeat sin; in other words the pain and suffering of crucifixion, ‘bearing the guilt for the sins of many’, was unable to overcome death.


-He was just a man, and not God.


-He was a liar, and so were his disciples. All the times in four gospels where Jesus promised that ‘whosoever believes in me shall not die, but have everlasting life’ make him and the gospel writers out to be liars.


-God has permitted all true Christians out to be liars as well. I can’t, don’t, and won’t believe that the nature of God is like that, the Bible says otherwise in plenty of places.

The proof that Jesus’ perfect sacrifice was sufficient enough to make us sinners right with God (“by grace through faith” - Ephesians 2:8) is in the fact of his resurrection itself, and gives all believers confidence that at some point after we die in this life we will have resurrected bodies and eternal life, just as our Savior promised multiple times in the gospels, and as the New Testament authors espoused on.

Perhaps the most memorable New Testament passage regarding the essentialness of the doctrine of the resurrection was by the apostle Paul, in I Corinthians 15:12-19 (Amplified): "12But now if Christ (the Messiah) is preached as raised from the dead, how is it that some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?  13But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not risen; 14And if Christ has not risen, then our preaching is in vain [it amounts to nothing] and your faith is devoid of truth and is fruitless (without effect, empty, imaginary, and unfounded).  15We are even discovered to be misrepresenting God, for we testified of Him that He raised Christ, Whom He did not raise in case it is true that the dead are not raised.  16For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised; 17And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is mere delusion [futile, fruitless], and you are still in your sins [under the control and penalty of sin]; 18And further, those who have died in [spiritual fellowship and union with] Christ have perished (are lost)! 19If we who are [abiding] in Christ have hope only in this life and that is all, then we are of all people most miserable and to be pitied."
 
Wow, what a statement and declaration of truth by Paul.  If we have no resurrection from the dead then Jesus doesn't either, and we are to be pitied by others, and we are, because they don't believe it (the resurrection).  But we brothers and sisters in Christ know otherwise, for we have experienced the prescence of Christ in our lives, and the peace, joy, fellowship, love, and purpose that comes along with it. 
 
Hallelujah, for He is risen!  He is risen indeed!

Happy Easter everyone, whether you observe and believe the resurrection of our Lord or not.  Thanks for reading my blog.