Travel annoucement and column

Dear Readers,

In the next few weeks, I'll be speaking in Colorado Springs CO, Mansfield OH, Fort Meyrs and Melbourne Florida,

If you need a schedule of my appearances in your area, please reply to this email.

Blessings,

Norris

Recovery team serves as the hands of God
BY NORRIS BURKES
FLORIDA TODAY

The F-16 single-seat fighter jet went down near the north end of Lake Okeechobee 150 miles north of Miami on a sultry morning on the last day of June 1999.

The pilot, Air Force Reserve Maj. Samuel D'Angelo III of Key Largo, was an American Airlines pilot and the flight commander for the 93rd Fighter Squadron at Homestead Air Reserve Base.

Within moments, duty pagers 100 miles away at Patrick Air Force Base began summoning individuals from the base clinic: Mental Health, Mortuary Affairs, Civil Engineering, the base chapel where I was serving, among others. These individuals composed the Battle Staff that would be responsible for planning a pilot rescue or recovering the remains of the pilot.

Early reports from the Battle Staff sadly indicated this mission would be the recovery of a body.

As the base responsible for search and recovery, our teams loaded supplies into vehicles and drove them within a few hundred yards of the crash site. At first, we scanned the area hoping against hope that we'd find the miraculous sign of a parachute.

But the scattered debris made the tragic results painfully obvious. The pilot had been performing maneuvers that required the plane to dip so low he likely encountered the lazy gliding of a turkey vulture. When he crashed, his plane slashed a mile-long swath through Florida swampland. There would be no parachute.

Recovery was a dirty job, and I found myself gripped with childhood fears of snakes and swamp animals. From a distance, we heard a mother alligator indicating her willingness to defend her babies. Occasionally, swamp water filled our waders as the medical folks warned about the heat index, waterborne pathogens and water moccasins.

We sifted through the mud and water, desperately praying to find the intact body of our comrade so that we might lovingly return him to his family. Instead, we found ourselves searching in more minute detail. We were looking for anything that resembled human anatomy.

When something was found, a call would ring out: "Find!" People stopped. Reverence held us still. The mortuary affairs officer stepped forward to determine whether the find was organic and needed to be placed in the flag-draped ice chest.

Finally, at the end of the first day, we came to a place where we discovered the majority of the remains. It was there I stopped the team for a prayer. I stopped there because I wanted Maj. D'Angelo's family to know we did this job in reverent remembrance of a fallen hero.

My prayer contained two requests. The first part called back a portion of a sonnet familiar to nearly everyone in the flying community. It's called "High Flight," and it was written by Pilot Officer Gillespie Magee before his death in 1941. Magee finishes the poem with a famous line:

"I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace

Where never lark, or even eagle flew --

And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand and touched the face of God . . ."

But the second part of the prayer hit us more deeply. For while Maj. Samuel D'Angelo had indeed touched the face of God, our team had miraculously become the hands of God.

Norris Burkes is a former civilian hospital chaplain and an Air National Guard chaplain. Contact him at norris@ thechaplain.net or visit www.the chaplain.net.

Travel annoucement and column

Dear Readers,

In the next few weeks, I'll be speaking in Colorado Springs CO, Mansfield OH, Fort Meyrs and Melbourne Florida,

If you need a schedule of my appearances in your area, please reply to this email.

Blessings,

Norris

Recovery team serves as the hands of God
BY NORRIS BURKES
FLORIDA TODAY

The F-16 single-seat fighter jet went down near the north end of Lake Okeechobee 150 miles north of Miami on a sultry morning on the last day of June 1999.

The pilot, Air Force Reserve Maj. Samuel D'Angelo III of Key Largo, was an American Airlines pilot and the flight commander for the 93rd Fighter Squadron at Homestead Air Reserve Base.

Within moments, duty pagers 100 miles away at Patrick Air Force Base began summoning individuals from the base clinic: Mental Health, Mortuary Affairs, Civil Engineering, the base chapel where I was serving, among others. These individuals composed the Battle Staff that would be responsible for planning a pilot rescue or recovering the remains of the pilot.

Early reports from the Battle Staff sadly indicated this mission would be the recovery of a body.

As the base responsible for search and recovery, our teams loaded supplies into vehicles and drove them within a few hundred yards of the crash site. At first, we scanned the area hoping against hope that we'd find the miraculous sign of a parachute.

But the scattered debris made the tragic results painfully obvious. The pilot had been performing maneuvers that required the plane to dip so low he likely encountered the lazy gliding of a turkey vulture. When he crashed, his plane slashed a mile-long swath through Florida swampland. There would be no parachute.

Recovery was a dirty job, and I found myself gripped with childhood fears of snakes and swamp animals. From a distance, we heard a mother alligator indicating her willingness to defend her babies. Occasionally, swamp water filled our waders as the medical folks warned about the heat index, waterborne pathogens and water moccasins.

We sifted through the mud and water, desperately praying to find the intact body of our comrade so that we might lovingly return him to his family. Instead, we found ourselves searching in more minute detail. We were looking for anything that resembled human anatomy.

When something was found, a call would ring out: "Find!" People stopped. Reverence held us still. The mortuary affairs officer stepped forward to determine whether the find was organic and needed to be placed in the flag-draped ice chest.

Finally, at the end of the first day, we came to a place where we discovered the majority of the remains. It was there I stopped the team for a prayer. I stopped there because I wanted Maj. D'Angelo's family to know we did this job in reverent remembrance of a fallen hero.

My prayer contained two requests. The first part called back a portion of a sonnet familiar to nearly everyone in the flying community. It's called "High Flight," and it was written by Pilot Officer Gillespie Magee before his death in 1941. Magee finishes the poem with a famous line:

"I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace

Where never lark, or even eagle flew --

And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand and touched the face of God . . ."

But the second part of the prayer hit us more deeply. For while Maj. Samuel D'Angelo had indeed touched the face of God, our team had miraculously become the hands of God.

Norris Burkes is a former civilian hospital chaplain and an Air National Guard chaplain. Contact him at norris@ thechaplain.net or visit www.the chaplain.net.

We can love the most unlovable people

We can love the most unlovable people

BY NORRIS BURKES
FLORIDA TODAY

I heard her crying through the walls of our hospital chapel.

Since my office was next door, I often heard pulsing sobs uncontainable by the chapel wall.

As I stood, pushing my chair away from my desk, I wondered what I would find this time. Would it be a mother crying for her child in surgery?

Would it be someone bargaining with God to save an alcoholic partner? Or would it be a community member praying for an errant child?

I'd seen all of these.

I opened the chapel door to see a petite woman nearly drowning in her tears. I couldn't make out all of her words, but it was clear she was sorry about something.

What was she sorry for? Something about her daughter. Was she sick? In an accident? Newly diagnosed with a terminal disease?

Wait. Was this the woman a nurse had earlier described in whispered tones? Was this the woman who brought her 6-year-old daughter to the hospital after beating her into a coma?

It was, and she was crying, begging God for forgiveness.

So, in the midst of her tears, I delivered the hospital chaplain's version of the Miranda rights. "I'm a hospital employee," I said, "I can be subpoenaed to testify about whatever is said here -- even in the chapel."

A few minutes later, I wasn't surprised when the chapel door opened revealing two detectives anxious to talk to her.

What did surprise me over the next few hours and days, however, was the presence of people from her church Bible study group.

It seemed to me that this woman likely had committed an unpardonable sin. Even Jesus condemned anyone who would harm a child saying that "would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea."

I was ready to drown this woman myself.

So how was it that this church could provide such a caring presence, let alone promise the presence of unconditional love voiced by a perfect God?

Yet there they stood. Quiet. Admittedly shocked, but nevertheless, they formed a presence without a voiced judgment.

I couldn't help but wonder: Did their presence bring love? Or were they over-the-line dysfunctional?

People are so imperfect in their love. They're capable of loving an errant spouse, yet sometimes incapable of loving their children. They love one parent, but not the other. They love animals, but not the homeless.

We possess an incredible ability to compartmentalize our love and then deliver it in the most inhospitable environments. We can love the most unlovable things.

I spent several weeks at the girl's bedside, watching her father wipe her drool and search her vacant eyes for the girl he once knew. And I have to tell you, I'll never find much love for this woman; I don't expect that you would either.

If this church could still show a loving and caring presence toward that woman, they must have seen something worth saving that only God could have shown them. The whole thing begged the question: How much more capable is God at loving us? If they could struggle through forgiveness and restoration, how much more can God do?

It's been about four years since I met the woman in the chapel. Since then, the child has died and the woman resides in prison. My hope is that the woman will live with two memories: one of her child and one of God's restorative forgiveness.

E-mail Norris at norris@ the chaplain.net or visit www.the chaplain.net.

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