"Who is Packing Your Parachute?"
Sunday, February 3, 2002
Charles Plumb was a U.S. Navy 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 six years in a Communist Vietnamese prison. He survived the ordeal. Charles Plumb now gives talks about the lessons he learned from that experience. One day, as Plumb and his wife were eating in a restaurant, a man approached and said, "You're Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You were shot down!" Plumb replied, "How in the world did you know that?" The stranger answered, "I packed your parachute." Plumb thinks often of that sailor who worked down in the depth of the ship, carefully folding those parachutes. Plumb asks his audiences: "Who's packing your parachute?"
Dana Reeve keeps packing the parachute for her husband, Christopher Reeve. Chris starred in the many Superman movies. In May 1995, ell from his horse in a riding accident. The fall severed his spinal cord and paralyzed him from the shoulders down. In his 1998 book, Still Me, Chris wrote: "I mouthed my first lucid words to Dana: 'Maybe we should let me go.'" Dana replied, "I want you to know that I will be with you for the long haul, no matter what. You're still you, and I love you."
Johnny Cash's older brother, Jack, keeps packing the parachute for Johnny, even though Jack was killed at age 14. In his 1997 book, Cash, the Autobiography, Johnny wrote: "Jack isn't really gone . . . His influence on me is profound . . . Since he died, his words and his example have been like signposts to me."
In the movie, It's a Wonderful Life, George Bailey (portrayed by Jimmy Stewart) learned how many persons were packing parachutes for him. An absent-minded uncle misplaced $8,000 belonging to George's building and loan. Clarence, the angel, showed George how many lives he had touched. At the movie's end, townspeople gave money to bail George out of trouble. George read these words from Clarence: "No man is a failure who has friends."
"Who packs your parachute?" Who provides the mental, the emotional, the spiritual parachute that supports you when life shoots you down? The parachute is a symbol of this support. The Apostle Paul recalled such support -- divine and human -- when he wrote these words: "God supports us in every hardship, so that we are able to come to the support of others, in every hardship of theirs . . . ." (2 Corinthians 1:4, NJB). I can tell you as a pastor that I am constantly given a lift by the quiet heroism and courage of the members of the congregation I serve. As we feel gratitude for the folks who have packed our parachutes, let's ask ourselves one more question: "Whose parachutes am I packing?"
