Flight Plan

It has been over two months since I last saw our daughter, Mary. I'll be flying down to see her next week. This will be over the weekend of the anniversary of September 11th. The day that changed Americans view of the world, especially our world within our borders. The overwhelming feeling of security was shaken to its core on that fateful day. We no longer waltzed through airport lines to fly here or there. We allow for more time to enter and pass through the terminals. We've become accustomed to taking off our shoes before going through security or almost expect to be searched, and wonder why 65 year-old grandmothers are singled out, when someone who is more suspicious is allowed to pass through without a second glance... by security. Now we face the guaranteed increased prices for travel because of a number of factors, not the least or at least not the latest, is Hurricane Katrina and her after effects. Then we think that some of us have the ability to fly wherever we need or want to go, and at the same time there are most likely people still trapped and holding onto any thin strand of hope they have left in parts of New Orleans and the areas along the Gulf Coast. We complain of no frills flying with only a snack and a drink, then think of those that have gone several days without food or drinkable water. It seems ironic that there are millions of gallons of water surrounding and engulfing a city and that many of the people will die of dehydration. Life and death are full of unusual twists and turns, fate and unfairness, luck and loss. We sit in our dry homes and watch the misery and devastation on television, but cannot grasp the magnitude of such destruction. A destruction that by a force of nature compounded by the ill-advised attempts by man to change what God has designed. Eventually nature is always more powerful than man. Nowhere is this more evident than in the storm ravaged areas of the Gulf Coast region right now. We think that there is no way of knowing what will happen, but there are signs if only we would recognize them before the inevitable happens. Let's hope that we listen and look for the signs of what man can do to man also so that another September 11th doesn't happen in our country.