Life has its curious twists and turns, and all of it is under the purview of God’s Divine Providence. We don’t know exactly the full picture, but it gets painted gradually and after time when we have the ability to step back and view the work that has been completed thus far.
My life has recently had one of these unexpected twists. It is a twist that struck many chords for me personally, and I am curious what all will be accomplished. I recently had the opportunity to move to Mississippi for a job. One of the curious aspects I’ve had with jobs is that most of the jobs I try applying for, I don’t get; then randomly one day one falls into my lap. Despite many hours of tireless applications and frustrations and endless searching, God drops the one He wants right into my lap. Perhaps I ought spend more time praying!
The job in Mississippi was just this. I resigned myself to my flight instructing job in Virginia and started working three jobs to keep everything together (hence my prolonged absence posting a reflection, but more will come). Suddenly, out of nowhere, the rain I was asking for arrived. And it was a downpour. In the span of three weeks, I got hired by the airline I wanted and I got offered a job in Mississippi that will help me get to said airline faster. In a few months I’ll be on track to fly jets! Not the kind I wanted, but the kind my family needs. I have St. Therese Lisieux to primarily thank for all this. I visited her in November and asked her assistance since she knew what it was a father needed for his children, and she granted me this favor through the help of a mentor.
The Air Force rejected one of their best applicants over a silly thing, and it is their loss. I’ll miss the chance to pull G’s and do awesome aerial work, but my family needed the tamer kind of jet flying, and that is what God desired as well, so that is what I get. I am very excited for it. Ironically, if the Air Force accepted me, I would have gone to the same area of the country for training, so it is rather funny that I still ended up there, but for vastly different reasons — at yet the same. I am here to fly airplanes, which would have been my Air Force mission. So God still sent me away to fly airplanes, just not in the manner I expected.
This job is also a godsend because it pays more than I made working three jobs. Now, I won’t have to work myself to death trying to stay afloat and make it to the airline. I am also away from family, which is unpleasant, but it gives me time to write more regularly, and hopefully finish some projects and get started on others. So I have financial breathing room and contemplative time for literary ambitions.
The last thing that is oddly tied together in all this is the Ivory-billed Woodpecker — the great Lazarus bird, the Holy Grail of North American birdwatching — the most majestic and awe-inspiring bird in the United States. Firstly, it is a woodpecker — that fact alone makes it better than all other birds. Then, it has the perfect blend of black and white and a touch of red. Thirdly, it is sized proportionately. It looks perfect when you look at it. Some birds have heads too big or too small or other aspects that make them look a little funny. The Ivory-bill is just right. Anyhow, this is important because this job took me right into the heart of historic Ivory-bill range, and not very far from places where it realistically could be seen. So… I have a new job, that pays well, flies more, and allows me the freedom to do one of the biggest things I’ve ever wanted to do: look for an Ivory-bill. It took 17years for me find a Golden-winged Warbler, and it happened in an extraordinary way. Now, twenty years later, I am in Ivory-bill land, and I have a chance to see the most exciting bird of all time. I’ve never wanted to see any other bird more.
So I have a chance. Will God bestow me with a once-in-a-lifetime view of one? I don’t know, but it wouldn’t surprise me. The Lord works in mysterious ways, and despite many desires to travel this territory, it always escaped me because I put more important things first. Now I am here. Maybe God will grant this as well. If not, at least I got the chance. Maybe the bird is extinct and I don’t have a chance to see anything. I personally think it is possible, so naturally, I have no doubt that I will find it before my time in Mississippi is up. I have a few months and a long, hot summer to find it. If you don’t know what an Ivory-billed Woodpecker is, you should look it up. It is simply majestic. It is also a very religious bird, which touches upon lots of Catholic theology. It is known to be a hard to find bird (is not God hard to access sometimes?) and it has been thought to have been raised from the dead and the brink of extinction (so many things destroyed by godless people in the 1900s)many times, so there is no reason why it could be so again.
In any event, whatever the outcome of being in Mississippi is, I have every confidence I will see an Ivory-bill before the year is over, and I’ll even take a photo to prove to people (more on that in another post) that I did. I always said I’d be the one to prove it is still around, and now I have a chance to do so. If God sends the bird, I’ll be ready.
Cheers to a new adventure in a new place, and since my life winds like a river, I’ll keep floating along wherever the bend takes me.
Semper Volans (Always Flying) 