The Wind Beneath My Wings
Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you:
But when the leaves hang trembling
The wind is passing thro'.
Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I:
But when the trees bow down their heads
The wind is passing by.
-Christina Rossetti
(Photo taken by yours truly several autumns ago.)
This is by far, one of my most favourite poems. I encountered it years ago but it spoke to me then and still speaks to me now. God is like the wind. You cannot see Him. But that doesn’t mean He isn’t there. The evidence of His existence is all around. And even if you don’t believe in the wind, it doesn’t cease to exist.
The grass was green and the sky was blue as I walked along Matilda Bay this morning. I saw a father and his two children, flying kites. It reminded me of weekend afternoons at West Coast Park in Singapore with my family, doing the same. As I observed, I noticed something: The wind was always there. It was constant. But it didn’t mean that the kite was always in the air. The kite would only fly when it caught the wind, at the right angle. We are like kites. God is always there but we may not feel Him, we may not be flying. It is only when we catch the Wind, when we position ourselves right, that we will truly soar.
My second observation was to do with the girl learning how to fly the kite. Knowing how to fly is a skill that needs to be taught. It doesn’t come automatically. Like the young child learning from her father, we need to learn how to position ourselves to catch the Wind. And like the father patiently teaching, we need to teach others too. It’s not a hard skill to learn, it takes some practice but after that it gets much easier.
As for me, I am thankful that I grew up in a family that taught me how to fly, in both senses of the word. I may not always be soaring but I know the basics of what I need to do to get there. What do you need to do today to catch the Wind?
Father, teach me to fly!