Article September 8, 1997 Issue

Trust your gauges

Charles Edward Langton

When someone is learning to fly on instruments, the flight instructor puts the student under a hood, a canopy that prevents the student from using visual cues such as terrain in order to control the aircraft. Instead, the student relies solely on the aircraft's instruments: compass, airspeed, altimeter, turn and bank indicator. This training is vital for flying at night or in bad weather when visibility is marginal or entirely lacking. I can recall my instructor saying, "Mr. Langton, you must remember that you can trust the gauges." In the degree that I did so, my instrument flights were smooth.

I saw a similarity in my instrument flying experience to that of relying on spiritual sense in daily life. How often the physical senses would present as real any number of reports about how imperfect life appears to be. Science and Health states: "Do you not hear from all mankind of the imperfect model? The world is holding it before your gaze continually" (p. 248).

The book goes on to explain that this is not the true picture, and it shows how to overcome imperfection and discord: "To remedy this, we must first turn our gaze in the right direction, and then walk that way. We must form perfect models in thought and look at them continually, or we shall never carve them out in grand and noble lives."

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

Protection from sudden fear