Almost a decade before I even knew that there existed these odd creatures
called "Revisionists," I went on a private safari to find my own
morsel of truth about a most important aspect of the "Holocaust."
This story has already been recorded and safely stashed away but shall not
be told at this point-let me just say that part of this venture was that
I had to go back to the jungle where I grew up as a young teenager, and
since I knew that it was dangerous, I took a lifelong friend as body guard
along who shall be known as Peter.
Peter is one of the world's most experienced and daring test pilots with
more flying hours under his seat than probably most anyone on earth, but
when he said that we would rent a private plane and fly into the bush, I
still quaked in my heart.
It was a single engine plane, and to call that contraption "rickety"
is speaking euphemistically And, by the way, symbolically: The owner of
that plane, who took the pilot's seat, with Peter next to him, was quite
a pious and self-righteous fellow called Adolfo. I swear I'm not making
this up.
Still, I climbed in. I sat in the back; Adolfo and Peter were sitting up
front in animated conversation, and I barely dared peek out of the window
as we were gyrating and swaying over that vast jungle stretch below. It
was a scary and yet a magnificent flight-the way I've always visualized
a psychedelic trip. . . not that I've ever tried it!
Having grown up up in that jungle below, I knew that if we went down with
our plane through accident or carelessnes, that was the end of us. Even
if we managed to survive the landing, there was no way to make it
out of that murderous bushland alive. The jungle insects, worse than tigers,
would gnaw us to three skeletons in hours!
We had quite a wind, and as we were being tossed about up there amid the
clouds of South America and I was clutching at the seat before me, I saw
that Adolfo had a little sticker on the panel of that airplane, and that
sticker said: "I fly with Jesus."
With what the Germans call "gallow's humor" I poked Peter on the
shoulder blade and said: Well, look at that. We fly with Jesus.
And Peter turned around, gave me one of his Peter smiles, and said: We
fly with gasoline. And our talk is full.
Goethe wrote a poem once that I can only translate poorly, but the essence
of it is that life's disasters come in buckets while happiness comes dribbling
in in drops-but would we trade two drops to offset those thousands of buckets?
This moment was one of those drops.
I am telling you this story because there is a lesson there, and it is this:
It is okay to have a lofty ideology to which we cling with faith, but we
have got to be more practical. So many of us have a vision of what we think
should be the outcome of this incredibly exciting adventure in search for
the Absolute Truth, but below is that murderous jungle. Just teeming with
millions of insects. Just waiting for a feast.
If we go down, there is no way to make it out. Our tank has to be full.
We are a hodge-podge group; each of us has a vision; some have more faith
than others. Some of us know, as this Adolfo did, with almost fanatical
certainty that there is Right, and there is Wrong, and that there is this
supernatural guidance that will steer us and help us land and build.
Still others, like myself, agnostic to the core, just hang on for dear life
while being tossed about, knowing that the search is necessary and someone's
got to do it or it will not get done-yet hoping that there
is enough still left of this fantastic fuel that made a generation soar
above the teeming jungle of our little planet.
And then there are the "Peters" of this movement who look at all
of it quite rationally and say:
"Let us make sure the tank is full. This is no baby quest."
Ingrid
Thought for the Day:
"Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith.
I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile."