The View from 35,000

We have reached our cruising altitude of 35,000 feet on our way to Newark Liberty International Airport. Though I have been flying since I was too young to know it, I still enjoy getting a window seat and watching the ground and clouds go by beneath us.

I didn’t get a window seat this time; my daughter did. I can see the distant landscape from here, though, and it is beautiful.

There is something peacefully freeing about seeing the earth from this far up. It is as if problems, difficulties, even disagreements are left way down there. The land rolls between densely developed cities, clearly delineated farmland, and rough, untamed wilderness. But from here, it all holds one thing in common. It is far from me.

Yet, distant as all that is, I am in a plane that has not a single empty seat. I am 35,000 feet above all the cares and concerns of my life, of the world, and still people, each with his or her own story, surround me.