Far from perfect?

A certain professional golf player, who won’t be named, in what we now know to be perhaps the understatement of 2009, admitted that “I’m far from perfect”. I have a few things in common with him. He plays golf, so do I. Well, it might be a stretch to call it playing, but I try. He’s travels away from his home quite a bit, so do I. He’s far from perfect, and so am I. Actually, so are all of us.

Don’t get the wrong idea; I’m not like the philandering pilot in “The Pilot’s Wife”, showcased by Oprah’s Book Club. I’m devoted to my wife, and take my marriage vows seriously. But like the bumper sticker “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven”, I’m still human.

Since it’s a new year, and resolutions are common, the subject of perfection and being perfect is appropriate. Being perfect is something I’ve wanted to write about for a while now. I feel like sometimes this blog mistakenly makes the impression that I’m expressing how good of a person I am, how obedient I am to God and what not. That is not the purpose. My intent is to share the experiences I have both as an airline pilot and as a Christian, trying to follow Jesus Christ in word, faith, and deed. I wish to glorify God and illuminate Christ. I struggle, I sin, I fail, I fight temptation, and I suffer. But I also pray, study God’s word, praise and worship Him, share my faith with others, revel with God and glorify him in my victories, and try to love others as I do myself.

Nobody’s perfect is a trite saying, but one that we all have in common, whether you’re the Pope or a pauper, President or Pro Golfer, Parent or Pilot. Honestly, we are all ‘far from perfect’. God’s view on this is shown in Romans 3:10-12, 18, and 23 as this theme: “10As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one; 11there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. 12All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one." . . .18"There is no fear of God before their eyes." . . . 23for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

Well, there is one exception to that rule. There is one man who lived a perfect life, and never committed a sin. I’m speaking of Jesus Christ, of course. He did God’s perfect will, sometimes even surprising his parents and offending others in the process, and though he was human like us and was tempted like us, he never sinned.

Scripture backs me up. From Hebrews 4:15: “For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.” Just after the Holy Spirit descended on him as he started his earthly ministry, he was tempted by the devil (Matthew 4:1-10). And from II Corinthians 5:21: “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

There’s more, from Hebrews 9:14 (NLT) “Just think how much more the blood of Christ will purify our consciences from sinful deeds so that we can worship the living God. For by the power of the eternal Spirit, Christ offered himself to God as a perfect sacrifice for our sins.”  And Hebrews 7:28 calls Jesus our ‘perfect High Priest’.

The naysayer might want to (1) debate whether Jesus lived a perfect life, and (2) also say ‘so we know we’re not perfect, so what? God still loves us anyway, so he would accept me into heaven, I’m not a bad person’. The first point is another subject, maybe for another day.  On the second point, yes, God still love us, but He commanded the Israelites in the Old Testament to “be holy, because I am holy” (Leviticus 19:2).

In the Old Testament, God’s people kept disappointing him with their sin and wickedness (not being holy), and God had Moses and Aaron institute a prescribed and precise system of animal sacrifice, which by the spilling and shedding of blood (because the penalty of sin is death, and spilling of blood represents death) would atone for the sin of the people and make things right with God (Leviticus chapters 16-17).

By the time Jesus was born (start of New Testament) and started his ministry 2000 plus years ago, the system of animal sacrifice for atonement of sins was firmly established. Then Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount and at the end of it commanded us to “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). Now didn’t God say in Genesis that he created man in his image? And Adam and Eve for a time didn’t sin, at all. So on the basis of God’s creation it’s actually somewhat valid for him to expect us to be perfect.

Let me get this straight, you might say. Not only is God and Jesus Christ perfect, but He wants us to be perfect? Yep. According to the Bible, we need either to be perfect (a very tall order indeed) or we need a fix (they say fix in Oklahoma, where I’m from originally), or a repair, or a remedy for our imperfectness. What I mean by this is a way to look like we’re perfect to God, even though we’re not. I think most all of humanity, when it comes down to it, would choose the latter option.

Jesus Christ himself is the fix for our imperfectness, and the way to repair the broken relationship we have with God due to our sin. He is the Son of God, part of the Holy Trinity, which is portrayed and displayed in the Old and New Testament. Thusly, he is God, and admitted as much in the gospels before he was crucified on the cross.

Do I mean Jesus will help us not commit sin at all and be perfect? Yes and no, kind of. Walking spiritually ‘in Christ’ will grow a desire in your heart to please God with your actions, desires, and thoughts. Avoiding sin only because you know its wrong quickly not only becomes tiring, it becomes impossible! Also, can imperfect humans really be perfect, really? Not by our own efforts, not by our own works. Even the Pope and Billy Graham sin. So where does that leave us, desperate?

For a moment only; no, that leaves us totally and completely dependent on Christ to perfect us, to make us perfect. But does the Bible say He does this? Yes! From Hebrews 10:14: “because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy (Christians being sanctified).” There it is, straight from the Holy word of God. We REALLY CAN are made perfect in God’s eyes, without actually being perfect!

This is a lot to chew on spiritually. For more explanation, I found it was good to read the sections from Hebrews 7:23-28, Hebrews 9:13-15, and Hebrews 10:11-18 (all NLT). Also consider the phrase ‘in Christ’ from the standpoint of John 15 (‘I am the vine, you are the branches’) and as well as from John 17:23 (NLT) when a pre-crucifixion Jesus prayed for future believers: “I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me.” Christ is perfect, and he is in us and we are in him. Hallelujah!

What can I share about flying lately? Well, I’m not perfect there either. Things occasionally happen, despite my best intents and efforts that I don’t share unless you’re a fellow pilot at my airline that I’m comfortable sharing it with. No, I can’t divulge the details; it didn’t require a visit from the Chief Pilot or the FAA. Let’s just say the complacency curve caught up to me, and something happened which made me ask “how the heck did that happen?” When I make errors, or mistakes, usually it’s ones of small significance, customer service related, or one where the Co-Pilot and I agree that it just amounts to ‘style points’. But sometimes, well, ‘stuff’ happens.

OK, I give, as I frequently do. We were taxiing out of a Birmingham, Alabama, about a month ago at ‘dark O’Clock’ in a pounding, cold rain. We were a little late because of a number of frustrating occurrences, some caused by a seemingly inept ground crew, some caused by a broken and uncooperative airplane.

The ramp crew hadn’t serviced our jet properly during the overnight, and I had to request water for the galley and lavatory, and a ground power unit (GPU) and air start cart. You’re heard these terms before and together they mean our APU (auxiliary power unit) was broken. When the APU is ‘inop’ we need a GPU for electricity and a start cart to provide air pressure to start our engines. The cabin not being clean enough was minor at this point.

They got us water and the aforementioned equipment, then boarded us and we prepared to start engines, only to see that the tug driver couldn’t make his headset work to communicate with us for the pushback. Eventually he got it working intermittently, and then our left engine had trouble starting correctly. The start was fine, but when it was completed we kept getting a red warning light and text and audible message ‘engine oil pressure’ telling us that the oil pressure on our left engine was too low. Upon checking the actual oil pressure gauge and the other engine indications, the reality was that the pressure was fine, and I surmised that so was the engine. It was entirely logical that the warning was not correct, but with a $2 million engine and a warning that won’t go away, you can get antsy quickly. I shut down the engine, we started the right engine, and planned to start the left one again, and we tried to communicate this to our soaked to the bone ramp agents through the rickety headset connection. Upon starting the left engine again the message wouldn’t go away, so I called for the QRH (Quick Reference Handbook) procedure for low engine oil pressure. The checklist basically said if you have both gage and warning message indications of low oil pressure, shut down the engine, if you have conflicting indications, keep it running and monitor it. Just about then the message did go way.

The ramp crew, in their yellow slickers, had about had enough. To get them out of the rain, I resolved to call maintenance and report our trouble in starting the left engine, but do it after taxi while sitting next to the runway. We finished our checklists and prepared to taxi out.

Leaving a rain soaked, black asphalt ramp at an unfamiliar airport for the very first time, at a dark hour of before sunrise would prove to be interesting. There had been so much rain and moisture that our windshield had fogged up on the inside surfaces, like you get on a car sometimes. I asked my FO to select high on our windshield heat instead of low. For some reason he was reluctant to do so, so I did it myself. The high setting would remove the fog on the windshield sooner. Windshield heat is a super powered version of rear window defogging on a car. We started taxiing out from the ramp to the taxiway after receiving taxi clearance from Birmingham ground control to taxi to our departure runway.

Feeling our way past the terminal and other aircraft, the wipers were doing okay in clearing the rain and the fog was slowly being removed from the windscreen. Two ‘islands’ (areas you can’t taxi over), wrapped in the blue lights taxiways are identified by, were ahead of us, and it looked like we could go right between both of them. Getting closer I slowed the plane down and we both peered through the drops on our windshield. “I don’t see lights on the inner sides of the islands” I said. My FO, a really good guy to work with but a new pilot at our airline, with only about 500 hours total time in jets, agreed. Approaching with about ten yards left to reach the islands I noticed that there was a green reflector in the ground right ahead of us, then the depth and width of the drainage ditch I was about to drive the plane into blossomed into full realization in the threat area of my brain. After an exclamation or two, a brake application and a sharp turn to the left around the ‘two’ islands which in reality were one, we found the taxiway down to the runway.

Fortunately I had been taxiing the jet slow enough to see the danger, slow down, and turn out of the way. We surmised that sometime in the past a blue light and post had been broken and the airport had replaced it with just a green reflector on the ground. The ditch was one to two feet deep and about three feet wide, and would’ve ‘ruined our whole day’ had I driven the plane through it.

At a holding ramp next to the runway, I called our maintenance department. When I reported our engine starting difficulty they agreed it was just an anomaly, and advised us to keep an eye on it, as we certainly would. The engine never gave us any more trouble the entire day, which involved five legs worth of flying.

The temperature in this moderate, constant rain was a cold 3 degrees Celsius, or about 38 degrees Farenhight. That required that we takeoff with our wing and engine cowl anti-ice systems turned on. Because our jet doesn’t have takeoff and landing performance calculated (it wasn’t certified this way to increase available payload) when operating without the APU on while using hot air from the engine for wing and engine cowl anti-ice, we would have to perform the takeoff with the cabin unpressurized, and consequently perform an unpressurized landing and takeoff at Charlotte, Huntsville, and Washington DC. I could explain more but at this point it would be too confusing and diverting from the story; just know that an unpressurized takeoff or landing is a pain in the butt!

After we briefed this procedure, I took a little time to consider with my Co-Pilot what we could’ve done better to avoid ‘driving it into the ditch’ in the first place. I should’ve selected high on the windshield heat immediately, and not taxied until it was clear of fog. I should’ve looked at the airport diagram closer and defined and briefed our taxi route from the ramp to the taxiway, before the plane started moving. I always brief the taxi before the plane is moving, but this time I let being in a hurry get the best of me. I noticed that the airport diagram didn’t show enough detail to see that the two islands were actually one, but one page later, in a map of the terminal and ramp area, it did show that important detail. Lastly, I should’ve been on better guard since I was operating at an unfamiliar airport. Actually there’s one more, too, that I kept to myself. I tend to lose ‘flight discipline’ somewhat when I get emotional, on the angry or happy side of the scale. I could do better in safeguarding against this.

‘Flight Discipline’ is an important term I favor in my job arena. When even the new FAA Administrator is lamenting a loss of professionalism in the regional AND major airline pilot ranks these days, encouraging pilots to have better flight discipline will be one of the keys to improving the airline safety record even further. I’d like to plug a great book I read by the same name, ‘Flight Discipline’ by Tony Kern, a veteran Air Force Pilot. He reviews military and airline accidents in which a lack of flight discipline directly contributed to the crashes occurring. Based on my experience as an airline pilot, former military pilots seem to have better flight discipline than their civilian cohorts. They have more of a mission mindset and a greater respect for the rules and SOP’s (standard operating procedures) than other pilots. This isn’t to say that every civilian pilot is a ‘cowboy’ either, by no means.

Traditionally, the public holds pilots in such high regard, sometimes I wonder why. Maybe it has to do with entrusting your life to complete strangers in a foreign, unknown, unfriendly sky. Not to malign my brothers and sisters in arms, but we are people too. On one hand, passengers seem to think that pilots are brave, courageous, have razor sharp reflexes and coordination, are safe and professional, and thusly, have the morals and ethics of saints. I’m sorry, it’s just not true. You can be a safe and professional pilot and still be completely human, with many personal failings. The opposite stereotype of pilots as greedy, lazy, drunk, egotistical male chauvinists and bigots who cheat on their wives or girlfriends is far from the mark as well. The reality is somewhere between; as it is in society in general, it depends on the individual pilot. Yes, airline pilots tend to have egos, but we’re not superheroes, we’re people like you and me. We’re just people, far from perfect people who have a love for flying, who have a blood and heart infection for being in the sky.

Two Too Laughed

Dateline: Thursday, July 9th, 2009

On this third morning of another five day trip (actually a three day and a two day back to back) with all very early show times, I’m grumpy, to be honest. It has a lot to do with ‘springing’ out of bed every day at 4 to 5 AM, I’m sure. That and the wrestling I’ve been doing with my laptop, which stubbornly refused to connect to the internet at the hotel.

I contacted their technical support twice, they apologized twice, and that’s about it. Actually they tried hard to fix it but their efforts had no effect. I think my anti-virus software is clogging up the works. I’ve tried to turn it off, unsuccessfully. I ask out loud: why would you sell anti-virus software you can’t actually turn off when you need to?

I’ve been trying to complete my airline’s recurrent internet ground school course while on the road so I don’t have to do it at home during my ‘girl time’ with SG and M & M. On the first overnight in Albany my browser wouldn’t work, at all. I found that if you leave the calendar set to the wrong month after checking future plans (oops), you can count on this exact problem occurring. Before I got back in the right dimension the Albany hotel’s business center rescued me; and Rochester’s version will have to help as long as I’m laying my head there, again tomorrow night. I have to finish within five days, before my one day ground school the day before another three day trip starts. With two days off between five days of flying and this next stint, the road wear and fatigue can and is piling up.

When I get stressed I can whine, complain and have a negative attitude. Misery does love company, especially with a regional airline crew. Or I can suck it up, make the best of it, crack jokes, and biblically ‘call all my suffering joy’. I prefer the latter attitude. Attempt at a humble disclaimer: although my suffering certainly is miniscule in comparison to what other Christians have endured and will endure, I feel like I’m still in the ballpark; that what I experience is worthy of meditation on the word of God. I’ll explain more later.

Now half awake after the first cup of airplane coffee (not really but it sounds good), I nudge the thrust levers to where I know they’ll reach our targeted thrust setting. The jet pushes forward on the smooth surface as our seasoned cockpit seats slowly absorb our body weights toward rotation speed. Breaking the bonds of earth in smooth air, really smooth air, always feels like a treat. I know our plane has hydraulically powered controls and what they call ‘artificial feel mechanisms’, but the stimuli experienced in my fingertips don’t ever seem to mind.

I know what the lay of the land is like climbing out off Rochester’s runway 22. On my left shoulder, this dawning has the low orange sun and lavender-pink back lit horizon silently urging me to say “Autopilot ON” so I can fully enjoy the view. It’s too soon for the fluffy, forested black not green ‘moss’ (trees) between farm fields below us to show their true color. The deeply, God and glacier carved Finger Lakes and hills stretch out in front of us again from right to left. This time they’ve covered by cotton comforters of fog and low cloud banks, which permit them and the river valleys sleep in lazily. I’ve observed fog and cloud banks covering river valleys many times in the eastern US. I wonder what’s it’s like on the ground. Is it really a dreamscape, with all the cars stopped on the middle of the road, wild animals tame, and odd things occurring all around, time suspended and slowed down?

Back to the reality of life on the line. In the midst of suffering, joy comes. As does my corny sense of humor. This trip just kept the laughs coming. It helps when your First Officer gets your brand of humor and laughs at your jokes, though.

On with Philly approach, our first destination, they ask a mainline flight to slow down to 190 knots at a quicker pace, with urgency in the controller’s (ATC) voice. The pilot answers back “we’re in the reduction process now”. My FO and I are struck with laughter; we’ve never heard such a thing. ‘Slowing’, ‘we’re slowing’, ‘Doing our best’, and other phrases are common responses to ATC asking that you make a speed reduction ASAP, but that obtuse one is not. We thought someone was on the Food Network or working for Dow Chemical.

Later at Detroit, we got a long taxi into the gate because of taxiway and runway re-construction. That delay made us leave the gate with a new batch of passengers just in time for the ‘red tail’ push. We were certain that our takeoff runway would be ’22 Left’, right next to our terminal. These Northwest mainline and NW Airlink aircraft just kept coming toward us in line for takeoff, towards the same runway we were destined to be in line for quite a while now. “Wait for eight more red tails to pass you before you get in the conga line for runway 22 Laughed”, is what the ground controller told us in translated words. His mispronunciation of runway 22 Left as “runway 22 Laughed” struck us as with cruel irony each time he told a new aircraft to get in line. We realized he really wasn’t laughing at our predicament, but his accent made us chuckle about it. He sympathized with many us in line, and told us the wait wouldn’t be too long.

Detroit is ‘Rock City’ (for you KISS fans) in this regard. MSP (Minneapolis-St. Paul) and ORD (Chicago) style the tower made quick work of getting us and maybe two dozen more red tails off the ground, clearing each one holding in position for takeoff as the one on the runway is still hurtling toward rotation speed. Us and the red tails were given ‘vectors west, vectors east, in this line you’ll wait the least’. Detroit tower could really teach Denver, DFW (Dallas), and Washington Dulles how to spring jets in the air in quick fashion.

The previous, second day of this trip, had us surrounded for a time by Canadians in ‘Muntray-all, Kay-beck’, the Canadian French way to say Montréal, Quebec, Canada. We were treated to more aviation comedy on the ground frequency. The official language of aviation is English, but in Montreal the controllers will oblige you in French if you wish. A private aircraft was taxiing out; all we heard was gibberish from the controller or the pilot and a call sign in French with the ending ‘paw-paw, paw-paw’. That’s the English ‘phonetic’ pilots speak for the letter P, this aircraft’s calls sign ended in the letters PP. But because in the ‘states’ it’s pronounced ‘poppa’, this odd back and forth banter was like two French birds calling each other. Anyway, you had to be there.

The fourth day we started a two day trip in DC, up early again, for a quick round trip to RDU and back first. Baking in the morning Virginia sun while boarding the plane for this second Rochester overnight, we were hurrying to get out on time. Then I did something which made me ‘want to get away for a while’. I didn’t have a Snickers either, so I’d just have to slink down in my seat and sulk for a moment.

The biggest rookie thing any airline pilot can do is transmit on the wrong frequency mistakenly. And it happens, eventually, to everyone, from United to Southwest to the smallest turboprop regional, a pilot will call in range to the company on the emergency frequency, or brief the passengers to turn the seat belt sign off on center frequency. Unbeknownst to me, it was now my turn. After using my best captain’s voice I flicked the transmitter switch selection back to our number 1 communication radio from PA (Public Address), only to notice it was already on ‘comm radio 1’. With a rush I realized that I had just welcomed our peeps on board and told them about our flight on our ‘National Airport’s’ Ground frequency! Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. Fortunately I had the speaker turned off and left it off, as I’m sure many aircraft loved to chime in how ‘that was a great passenger briefing, thanks!’. After catching my breath and reclaiming some dignity, I told my FO in clear terms that I wasn’t going to talk on the radio again that afternoon. We laughed, learned, and moved on, er, flew on, rather.

So ‘when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade’. Many folks have that attitude. But as a Christian, how does this apply differently? From James (Jesus’ brother) book, James 1:1-4 (NIV): “James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes scattered among the nations: Greetings. Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."

It’s illogical to most in the secular world to call enduring all kinds of trials and suffering as ‘joy’ for the intention that the God will be glorified in the life of a growing Christian believer. But that’s the gist of applying this scripture, I believe. For a more detailed and better explanation, click here.

I’ve experienced joy from the Lord during periods of great duress. Without going into details, in the midst of a great deal of emotional pain I’ve prayed to God for relief and found myself laughing with joy, knowing with a peace that things were going to be OK for me.

My Mother, or someone, a pastor or radio preacher, or maybe scripture, taught me in the past to give my trials and suffering over to God, let go of my burdens and release them to him. All I can say is that it works, the Holy Spirit works, it works inside of me and it can work inside of you.

And in the end (I’m trying to finish here) Paul’s great letter to the Romans provides a snippet of closure. We won’t suffer forever. From Romans 8:18, 8:23, and 8:28 (NLT): “18 Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later; 23 And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering; 28 And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.”

On earth, we’re stuck with trials and suffering, but we can react to them with true joy in the Holy Spirit’s power. When trials continue to come in my life, as I’m sure they will, I hope to include God in them. Together, like with a trusted fellow Co-Pilot, the two of us will laugh too.