Qantas have had a bad run lately. It’s one thing to be a shoe manufacturer with an unreliable product, but it’s a whole different thing to be an airline with a maintenance issue. Having a stiletto break doesn’t rate the same as the bottom peeling off an aircraft at 30,000 feet, or an engine stopping before the plane has.
My faith in flying things is directly proportional to their size. I will happily climb aboard a 300 tonne airborne super tanker carrying enough fuel to incinerate a small city. However, I don’t take pleasure in small planes. I understand it’s purely psychological and there is no doubt a statistical formula that tells me so, but I know intuitively we aren’t meant to fly. Planes use a lot of energy working against the forces of nature – gravity being the most obvious.
Likewise if you take a holiday on a ship you are also pitting against the forces of the natural world. The recent P&O cruise is an example. There’s really no point in complaining that the weather god’s interrupted your dream holiday. Whether you fly or float there is risk.
So why do we do it? Why hop on a plane or a ship and travel well beyond the reaches of security. History tells us these modes of transport fall from the sky and sink - people die.
The reason is simple – apparently trustworthy organisations tell us they are safe by making comparisons. For example, you are more likely to be in a car accident on the way to the airport than in a plane crash. Give me the ride to the airport any day! If there is a crash I’m much more likely to “survive” the one on the way to the airport.
Yet we’re not that foolish. For the most part we do a “risk” versus “enjoyment” calculation before we do these things. However, what makes something enjoyable is often the risk. It’s a step of faith.
To know happiness we must also know sadness. To experience love is to also know hate. These are strange paradoxes of life. Risk is only risk to those who know safety – it is only risk when there is a potential loss.
The greatest personal risk is usually death, but unlike other losses in life death is unavoidable – it is certain.
I wonder if God has not made our natural life finite for the very reason that it forces us to make faith decisions. That’s right, faith is not the domain of the religious, it’s built into the fabric of our existence. We all live between life and death, between the decision to let go and hang on.
Jesus said if you want the best life you must trust God. But to trust God, you must let go of trusting only yourself. Such trust changes both the nature of this life and the one to come. But it is a risk! That’s why it’s called faith. The question we face is, are we brave enough to take it?