Myanmar - “Airborne”

Once again soaring through the sky, this time, the side of the aircraft in yellow and purple letters scripted “Air Mandalay”. We are in flight from Inle Lake back to Yangon, Myanmar where my niece lives. I never seem to grow bored gazing out the window. This new vantage point lends order and logic to the landscape, roads curve to avoid hills, rivers trace paths to lakes, roads that from earth seem laid out without thought emerge as well-planned grids. The countryside resembles a patchwork quilt, brown patches of freshly tilled soil, green patches of fertile pastures interspersed with golden patches of sesame flowers. In a distance I have an aerial view of the lake and the villages on stilts with rows of floating vegetable gardens.

There is not much talk about the clouds that are visible up here. No one seems to think it remarkable that somewhere above the earth we are flying past a vast white cottony island that could very possibly be God’s chariot as he rides across the heavens exercising loving kindness, judgment and righteousness to those in need. I have never heard the Captain stop the activities in the bustling cabin to announce with emphasis that if we look out the window, we can see clouds that resemble giant, billowing, piles of unsteady shaving foam and God could very easily be sitting on one. The Lord appeared to Moses in a cloud. In Psalms 104:3 He makes the clouds His chariot and rides upon the wings of the wind, Deut 33: 26, He rides on the heavens to help you and on the clouds in his majesty. There are also numerous references of Christ ascending and descending on a cloud. As I press my face against the cold plane window, I feel a sense of peace and tranquility. God seems so close…almost tangible “for Your mercy and loving-kindness are great, reaching to the heavens, and Your truth and faithfulness to the clouds, Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let Your glory be over all the earth. Psalms 57:10-11.