Who's Packing Your Parachute?
Charles Plumb was a US Navy jet pilot in Vietnam. After 75 combat
missions, his plane was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile.
Plumb ejected and parachuted into enemy hands. He was captured
and spent 6 years in a communist Vietnamese prison. He survived
the ordeal and now lectures on lessons learned from that experience!
One day, when Plumb and his wife were sitting in a restaurant, a
man at another table came up and said, "You're Plumb! You flew jet
fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You were
shot down!"
"How in the world did you know that?" asked Plumb.
"I packed your parachute," the man replied. Plumb gasped in
surprise and gratitude. The man pumped his hand and said,
"I guess it worked !"
Plumb assured him, "It sure did. If your chute hadn't worked, I
wouldn't be here today."
Plumb couldn't sleep that night, thinking about that man. Plumb
said, "I kept wondering what he had looked like in a Navy uniform:
a white hat; a bib in the back; and bell-bottom trousers. I wonder
how many times I might have seen him and not even said 'Good
morning, how are you?' or anything because, you see, I was a
fighter pilot and he was just a sailor." Plumb thought of the many
hours the sailor had spent at a long wooden table in the bowels of
the ship, carefully weaving the shrouds and folding the silks of each
chute, holding in his hands each time the fate of someone he
didn't know.
Now, Plumb asks his audience, "Who's packing your parachute?"
Everyone has someone who provides what they need to make it
through the day. He also points out that he needed many kinds
of parachutes when his plane was shot down over enemy
territory -- he needed his physical parachute, his mental
parachute, his emotional parachute, and his spiritual parachute.
He called on all these supports before reaching safety.
Sometimes in the daily challenges that life gives us, we miss what
is really important. We may fail to say hello, please, or thank you,
congratulate someone on something wonderful that has happened
to them, give a compliment, or just do something nice for no reason.
As you go through this week, this month this year, recognize people
who pack your parachutes.
I am sending you this as my way of thanking you for your part in
packing my parachute. And I hope you will send it on to those who
have helped pack yours.
-- This is Rex Barker C.S. (Cruising the Skies)
wishing you sunny skies and a light breeze.
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