After I had settled into my plane seat and opened a book (Ascent of Mount Carmel, which I have read before but could read many times more) for my trip from San Angelo to Dallas, an angel-like apparition of bright and gold filaments suddenly stood in front of me. The apparition spoke three curious words: “Be not
afraid” and dissipated. How strange, I thought, and looked around to see if anyone
else was reacting to this image. Apparently not. All the other passengers were busy
reading, putting their bags away, and the like. Since this was the first time I have had a locution in a
public place, I had (and still have) no idea how to interpret what happened.
How could I alone have seen and heard this being so clearly?
For the life of me, I had no idea why I would be
told not to be afraid. I fly nearly every week, and I have never experienced
any fear of flying even when small problems have occurred before or during
flight. The thought that maybe something
was going to happen to this particular plane, even that perhaps we passengers
might be going to die, flashed into, through, and out of my conscious mind. Then, I
dismissed the event as an unexplained (and unexplainable) curiosity and settled
into my seat with my book.
Partway through the short flight, bolts of lightning splayed
outside the windows on both sides of the plane. We were caught in a
thunderstorm, the likes of which only Texans know. Apparently taken by
surprise, the pilot seemed to lose control of our small plane as we pitched
from side to side and up and down for a few minutes. Passengers gasped.
Clearly, some were quite frightened. The voice of my traveling companion
sounded strained when he conveyed his concern about the lightning that
continued to light up our evening flight.
We were on a downward path by that time, on the way to landing at the
Dallas airport. Dark cumulus clouds surrounded the plane and haphazardly tossed
lightning bolts into the atmosphere, some of them coming close enough to the
plane that their wake jerked us in a direction other than the one in which the
pilot was headed. We had quite a pile of them to plough through.
“Well,” I told my traveling companion, “the only way down is
through these clouds, so there are probably not many choices that the pilot
has. Besides, we are in a small plane, and buffeting is usually more exciting
in a puddle-jumper.”
I was not concerned. I had been told not to fear, the reason
for which had now elucidated itself. Clearly, all would be well. And it was.
With such things—visions, which I
get rarely, and locutions, with which I have been blessed (or cursed) somewhat
more commonly—I am always uncertain in my interpretation, even more so since
reading St. John of the Cross’s warning to be
cautious in interpretation of visions and locutions for not all come from God
and even in the case of those that do, the linear, logical interpretation of
immediate access to human beings is far more limited than God’s view and even
perhaps intent:
“To try to limit them [sayings and revelations] to what we can understand concerning them and to what our sense can grasp is like attempting to grasp the air and some particle on it that the hand touches. The air disappears, and nothing remains.”
I seem to have reached a stage in
my spiritual development in which I can comfortably pay them less heed (unless
they involve a tasking). I look forward to the day when, having matured
spiritually into an adult, I can “put away childish things,” to use St. Paul’s
metaphor, and understand what God would have me know, learn, and/or do without
the need to use the physical senses necessary for visions and locutions.
For now, though, I do not have the foggiest idea why I was told not to be afraid for I do not think I would have been afraid, anyway. Still, maybe I have one foot still dragging through the stage where I find it comforting to receive evidence that God is taking care of me. One day perhaps both feet will be planted on higher ground. For now, I just say thank you.
