The first session of ground school was this morning in the classroom. Just a basic introduction, wherein we all went around and gave tidbits about ourselves interspersed between war stories and inspirational proclamations from Mr. Hahn, the professor. He’s a very genial fellow, with loads of experience in teaching and in the field and with the great sense of humor that you know comes only when someone has to be dead serious in other, more essential areas of life. He certainly stressed the seriousness of the endeavor. We have to be the best pilots in the world, not for ourselves but because a mistake or an oversight will endanger not only ourselves but our passengers and more than that, the efforts in whatever field we’re placed. Flying isn’t a forgiving pursuit. The overwhelming emphasis on serving others was brought to the forefront in a way it hadn’t been before. We may be operating “only” in a support capacity, but we’ll be doing a very necessary job.<\/p>\n
I really feel like I’m meant<\/i> to do this. There’s a semantic, though not hierarchical, difference between feeling meant<\/i> to do something and feeling called<\/i> to do something. Both propositions are equal to the extent that we’re in His will and partnering with Him in whatever He’s doing, but I think being meant to do something means more of our natural talents and inclinations converge around the activity in which we’re immersed. This stands in contrast to being called, where our natural abilities may or may not play a prominent role in the task at hand (and more credit to God’s provision in the situations where they don’t, really). But this, this… All my interests, hobbies, passions, personality seem to close in around everything I see, hear, study… This has been so long in coming. If there’s been one constant interest in my life, it’s been aviation, and now to be so close and so involved… I didn’t even think of flying as consciously unattainable for years and years–it just placed itself subconsciously in that category, and now to be studying with the goal that I<\/i> will be at the controls, in charge, all the instruments on the panel will be operating for my<\/i> benefit as the pilot in command–it scares the daylights out of me. But also excites me more deeply than I was really expecting. I don’t really know what to do with it all except channel it into more diligence, more focus on making sure I learn absolutely everything<\/i> I need to, and more. Of course I’m completely open to God’s will and timing in my life–if I’m only supposed to be here for a season, I will be content with that, but for now…I’ve come home–maybe not just yet physically, but directionally, oh yes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The first session of ground school was this morning in the classroom. Just a basic introduction, wherein we all went around and gave tidbits about ourselves interspersed between war stories and inspirational proclamations from Mr. Hahn, the professor. He’s a very genial fellow, with loads of experience in teaching and in the field and with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/953"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=953"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/953\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.boldulysses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}