Moving Forward

John Gillespie Magee, Jr., was born in Shanghai, China to missionary parents. His dad had been a wealthy man but chose to become an Anglican priest and was sent to China where he met his wife. John was born on June 9, 1922. In World War II, John flew for the RAF (Royal Canadian Air Force) and on his first solo flight in a Spitfire reached the altitude of 33,000 feet. The experience inspired him to write a poem when he landed. On December 11, 1941, John was killed in a training exercise when his formation of four Spitfires looped earthward, broke through the cloud deck directly in the path of an oncoming aircraft, and John's Spitfire collided with it and crashed. He was 19. The poem he wrote, High Flight , hung in my house during my late childhood years. It was carved into a wooden shield that hung on the wall of my dad's den. I read it almost daily, memorized it, pressed my fingers into the grooves of the carved letters, and thought about the face of God. I never knew John...

Jesus died. Hope is gone. They thought he was the one who would free them from Roman domination but he died just like all the others who had tried and failed. What now? They'd been connected to him for three years. Would they too be crucified? Hope died yesterday, buried in the rubble of the earthquake that eerily shook the earth  with his last breath and covered the sun with the debris of their dreams. Never again! I will never dream again. Dad was right. Trust the known. You are a fisherman, son. Who do you think you are? A hero? No Dad, I am a fisherman. Why would God pull an ordinary man like me from his family business---yes, I said ordinary---too stupid in the Torah to move beyond the basics of schooling to follow a messiah against the elite of our religion and the dominion of Rome. Who did I think I was? Jesus, Jesus, why did you have to die? I will never dream again. That is how I feel about ministry today. Who do I think I am---going to school to become a theologian, a...