Imagine this scenario. It’s May 1944. You’re a member of an allied air force reconnaissance squadron. You’ve been ordered to pilot a small plane over the English Channel into France to take photos of the German defensive positions prior to the D-Day invasion. You’ve completed that part of the mission and with vitally important information, you’ve begun your return to your base. As you glance out ahead of you, you notice that approaching you quickly is a blanket of dark and ominous clouds stretching from the surface of the channel upward as far as your eyes can see. And, it is moving quickly toward you.
At that moment, you have no idea how your tiny plane will get through. You are too far from home to engage radio communication with your base for instructions, so your mind begins racing through what the prescribed protocol might be. Your plane is not built to make it through what obviously lays ahead. If the tiny one-seater isn’t torn apart by the potential hurricane force winds imbedded in the storm, the headwinds will surely cause you to burn up more fuel than is necessary to get you back to the base. You ask yourself, what would most pilots do? The answer enters your thoughts immediately. I should turn back to France and land my plane in enemy territory. Most likely, I will be captured. The vital information I have will be lost, but hopefully I’ll live to fight another day. “That is my most prudent course,” your thoughts initially tell you.
Then you remember stories shared among your brother pilots typically after consuming quite a few beers at the officer’s club. They would talk about the very best pilots flying up and through storms such as this. You’d never actually met any pilot that had done it, but there were stories about them. Of course, in every one of tales that you had heard, the pilots were much better than you and their planes were certainly more powerful and sturdy that the puny spotter plane that you’re flying. “No,” that inner voice replied, “You are not skilled enough, nor are you properly equipped. Turn back and ditch!”
Then another voice suddenly appears in your mind. “You must go on,” it says. “You have information that is vital to the success of your mission and possibly the entire war effort. Yes, you’re up against steep odds and, given this situation, most others would turn back. If you do so, nobody will blame you for your failure – except you. You see, you are not like everybody else. You see things differently, not with your eyes, but with your vision. You are a better flyer than you know and, because you’ve never been tested like this, you doubt. But you are better and stronger than you think. You can do this! You will do this!”
You close your eyes for a moment and visualize a clear and bright space that lays just above the dark and turbulent abyss you are quickly approaching. You take a deep breath, swallow the lump in your throat and begin your plane’s ascent. Immediately you feel the winds buffet the fuselage. It feels like you’re a small fly being swatted by a huge hand. Every time you feel your plane climbing, suddenly downdrafts seem to push you far below whatever upward distance you’ve achieved. It appears like you’re getting nowhere as your precious fuel continues being consumed. You experience a moment of doubt and panic. “Can I really do this?” you ask yourself. “Am a strong enough? Am I good enough?” Then your inner voice responds, “It’s too late to turn back now – you must do it, or you will surely perish – so do it!”
You grasp your controls firmly and fight for more altitude. The wind, thunder, and lightning continue unrelentingly, seemingly intensifying into a crescendo of mayhem. In what you feel may be your final act of desperation you call out, “Lord, I trust that if you lead me to it, you will lead me through it.”
Suddenly, just ahead, above the dense cloud cover, you see a shaft of light breaking through. You move your plane toward it and, at once, you realize there is an opening in the sky. You move to it and, then you break through the dark and violent shroud and you find yourself in a brilliant and calm expanse of clear and open sky. Then your radio crackles alive. It’s your home base repeatedly calling out your flight number and asking for a response. With a shaking hand you grip the microphone and acknowledge the transmission. “Repeat, what is your current position?” the controller answers. For a brief moment you glance up toward the clear heavens, and then with a smile you reply, “Tower, my position is CAVU.”
While covering the funeral of President George H. W. Bush this past November one of the news anchors in deference to Bush’s service as a Navy pilot in World War II, used the term “CAVU” in describing his now final and eternal destination. That sparked a memory of my using that term in one of my weekly inspirations back in 2011. This week’s message is an adaptation of that post.
CAVU is an operational term commonly used in aviation, which designates a condition wherein the ceiling is more than 10,000 feet (3,048 meters) and the visibility is more than 10 miles (16 kilometers). It stands for “ceiling and visibility unlimited.”
While the forgoing pilot’s story is purely a product of my imagination, what is true about it is the power that one can derive from belief and attitude. Dr. Charles R. Swindoll, Chancellor of the Dallas Theological Seminary, has often and eloquently written about the power and importance of attitude. Here is an excerpt from his book Day by Day:
“I believe the single most significant decision I can make on a day-to-day basis is my choice of attitude. It is more important than my past, my education, my bankroll, my successes or failures, fame or pain, what other people think of me, or say about me, my circumstances, or my position. The attitude I choose keeps me going or cripples my progress. It alone fuels my fire or assaults my hope. When my attitudes are right, there’s no barrier too high, no valley too deep, no dream too extreme, no challenge too great for me.
Yet we must admit that we spend more of our time concentrating and fretting over the things that can’t be changed than we do giving attention to the one that we can change, our choice of attitude. Stop and think about some of the things that suck up our attention and energy, all of them inescapable: the weather, the wind, people’s action and criticisms, who won or lost the game, delays at airports or waiting rooms, x-ray results, gas and food costs.
Quit wasting energy fighting the inescapable and turn your energy to keeping the right attitude. Those things we can’t do anything about shouldn’t even come up in our minds; the alternative is ulcers, cancer, sourness, depression and misery.
Let’s choose each day and every day to keep an attitude of faith and joy and belief and compassion.
Take charge of your own mind!”
What this all simply boils down to is that while we cannot directly choose our circumstances, we can choose our thoughts, and so, indirectly yet surely, shape our circumstances.
Have an AWE-full weekend and remember, with the right attitude, despite real or perceived obstacles, your ceiling and visibility is unlimited!
CAVU!
William “Bill” Bacque