Any pilot will tell you that part of the training they receive is to know when to ignore their own common sense. There are changes in weather, daylight, acceleration and flight path that will confuse one's senses and create false impressions of important things- like which way is up. Pilots know that one can't rely simply on what one feels in order to fly right. Pilots are trained to trust what their instruments tell them.

The ultimate test of a pilot's knowledge and discipline is the first night flight. There's nothing to see outside the cockpit. The soft glow from the instrument panel presents an abstract representation of altitude and horizon, speed and climb, not a picture of the land and airspace ahead. It is unnerving to trust in something you cannot see directly, to put your life on the line hoping that what you have been taught is true and that you have learned it well enough to be guided through your journey to a safe landing. With practice flying by instrument become more comfortable, but that first flight is always a source of white-knuckle excitement.

Let me suggest that much of life is like flying by instruments in the dark. There is only so much we can see from where we sit. We are always prone to being fooled into poor, or even fatal, choices by our feelings. We need something to guide us when we cannot see the way forward for ourselves.

Job, who would fly through wind shears, lightening and deep darkness, put his head down, checked the read-outs to find the true horizon, and then declared, "I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the end he will stand upon the earth." With his flight path clear, Job could then speak of his destination, "after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see on my side." The hope that Job expressed is a hope that we have inherited, we have only to claim it and practice making it our own. The first night flight is always the hardest. But we'll get lots of chances to fly blind in our lives.

Joe would have supported the veracity of all I have said - he was a jet pilot. Joe also would have gotten the flying as life metaphor and the connection I made to Job. As a faithful Episcopalian who took his place in the councils of the church Joe knew that moving forward in faith, not full and direct knowledge is part of the flight plan for parishes as well as for individual people. In his work as an Investment Banker and a principal in Princeton Capital Management, Joe developed a high degree of knowledge and skill. And as is true for all of us, whatever altitude we may achieve at the height of our powers there comes a time to land, and to hang up our helmet. This is natural order of things.

As a young man Joe would guide a thundering jet down the canyons of Manhattan, a way of sort of waving from on high to his young wife. Then he would peel off, leaping tall buildings in a single bound. More recently Joe cruised, at much slower speeds and with considerably less accuracy, wiping out the entire cereal aisle with his shopping cart.

While Joe would no doubt prefer the first story as a description of his life and times, it is the two stories together that lead us to a deeper appreciation of Joe and of the Gospel's promise. We are continually rediscovering that we are not the primary pilots of our lives that the trainer sits with us, and takes the yoke when our skills or our strength are not enough to get us home. This is what Jesus was trying to tell Thomas.

Our instruments include the faith community of which we are a part. The Scriptures help us find true north and a level horizon. We are not the planes in which we sit anymore than the Corinthians were the tents in which they dwelt. Our bodies may go down to dust but our spirits have a landing place prepared for them.

It is not our skill that gets us to our Father's hanger. It is not the plane we knew so well. It is the Trainer who knows all landing strips and has conquered all darkness - and all heavy weather - who flies us through that last leg of the journey.

We can see the contrails of the Spirit in the lives of the faithful. We can do our best to learn to fly by the instruments we have been given. But in the end it is our trust in the Trainer- that He is who He says He is- that will bring us safely home.

If we close our eyes for a second I'd like to think that in our heart's vision we might perceive a moving light picking up speed, that rocks briefly like wings waving, then flashes ahead to the place that we will all one day go - Safe landing, Joe, AMEN.