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#7326By mysticsdream on Thursday, December 09, 2004 - 8:42 am

Tom Clancy commences the first chapter of his novel Every Man a Tiger with these words: “Fighter pilots know something of what Arabs know, and what few of us like to admit – that none of us is in control of our lives, that we’re all in the hands of God”.

The novel is a biographical account of General Chuck Horner who, among other things, commanded the US Airforce in Desert Storm.

Even given the abysmal grammar of a novelist who should know better: (eg ‘none of us is’), and despite a generalisation which seems untrue for many (‘none of us is in control we’re all in the hands of God’), from the chapter beginning to its end the author sets the scene for a true life story that invites the reader to want to explore the experience and find out more about this man and his subsequent life.

More importantly the telling of this life changing event has that ring to it of, ‘I know exactly what he means’. The question that Horner asks at the close of his introduction, is possibly most readily understood by those who have had a near to death experience, and found themselves in an unexpected encounter with their God! “The sand, the sky, the certainty that he was going to die. Was this what it had all been for? Was this what God had in mind?”. I want to find out more about this unfinished business.

I want to find out just how conventional, and how extra-ordinary this man was.

Clancy explains that Horner’s life changed with a near to death event in 1962, whilst flying over the deserts of Libya. Because of pilot error in another aircraft, he stalled his aircraft’s engine. In Clancy’s words: “all he could see was the ground screaming up at him”. The following is what Clancy records.

“I’m going to die. There is no way an aircraft will recover from this <FONT COLOR="ff0000">••••</FONT>. Its not capable of doing it. I’m going to die out here in the shitty nowhere desert, splattered like roadkill on the ground.” Clancy says facing this he had two simultaneous feelings ‘outrage and surrender and time slowed to a near stop. He had never felt so calm and serene in his life’.

Perhaps Clancy has inadvertently passed over the first response of shock and panic. Perhaps he has not done justice to the fighting spirit of a man who refused to bail out or surrender, and somehow clung to life even as he gave himself over to God.

But listen to the General explain this paradox, as he asked himself “what can I do to get out of this this? I don’t really want to die here”.

All this is happening in an instant, and a memory comes to the General of a conversation he overheard in the cafeteria. A pilot had used an afterburner on his aircraft and somehow avoided the inevitable death. So intuitively, the General reaches for the after burner, and it works. Its not supposed to, but it does, and it gives him a fighting chance. And that’s what he wants in that instant. Then its back to doing what he does best, control of the aircraft. Eventually he pulls out of the downward dive.
Well its all explainable isn’t it. He had the answer within him all the time! That sounds plausible except later trying to work out what happened, he realises ‘the numbers didn’t compute. There was no way he could have recovered that airplane. The physics of the maneuver were such that it just wouldn’t work.”

Horner feels like that his life was held in the balance of God and given back to him must serve a purpose. Remember this is Tom Clancy writing, not a TV evangelist.

Horner changed his outlook after that day. “Every day of my life after that event has been a gift. I was killed in the desert of North Africa. I’m dead. From then on I had no ambition in terms of what course my life would take. That was up to God to decide” etc etc. He goes on to say he didn’t give up enjoying life, enjoying his power and money etc. But he felt as if he had somehow placed his life in God’s hands, and that perhaps God had a plan. It’s the next words that interest me: “Christians talk about rebirth. Some piss me off when they do. They go round holier than thou. ‘well I’ve got the word now because I’ve been reborn in Jesus”. Well fine, OK but if you really have all that you don’t need to tell me, I’ll know”

“I was reborn. Why? He wanted me to do something… What? I don’t know. He has never told me what He wanted me to do”…

Twenty eight years later he is commanding the allied forces in Saudi Arabia. “What am I going to do if they (Iraq) come south?. We don’t have any forces. Then I realised it was what the Arabs call inshallah. “It is not mine to do, its mine to do the best I can; its going to happen according to God’s will”.

Well that’s not even half way through the first chapter, but a stimulating beginning.

I wonder if you guys have had a near to death experience, and if so, how it changed you.

I can see I could learn from the wisdom of inshallah. In what sense are we in control of our lives, in what sense is God in control.

I’m not sure of Tom Clancy’s religious affiliation, if any, but he’s got me interested in some of the paradoxes of this man Horner’s life.

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#7330By mountainwoman on Thursday, December 09, 2004 - 5:44 pm

Reading this reminded me of hitting black ice on a very busy highway during a snowstorm back in 1994. I lost control of the car and by all rights should have either 1. hit one of the walls enclosing the two lane section I was on; 2. been hit by one of the 12 or so cars that were following close behind; or 3. gone over the median and been struck by any number of cars going along on the other side.
Instead, I somehow came to a stop facing oncoming traffic atop a short section of cement, just large enough to accomodate my Honda. I miraculously had neither hit nor been hit. Eventually someone sent a tow truck that pulled me off, got me facing in the right direction and sent me on my merry way. There was no damage whatsoever to the car.
To this day, I believe there is nothing you can do if your number's not up yet. Nothing you can do if it is.
As to why I was spared, I have no idea either. I'm not sure there is a grandiose reason. Maybe it's just so my grand children have a gramma to bake cookies for them when they get here. Maybe it's so I can ask annoying questions of people. Or maybe something fabulous I can't even begin to imagine will come up sometime to make me think "Ahah! so this is why I wasn't killed before!" (I'll let you know if that ever happens - *lol*)

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#7331By Albert on Thursday, December 09, 2004 - 6:36 pm

It is so you can meet wondeful people like Carlan, and Mystic, Mandy, and Me and others.

Seriously, closest brush is this.

I am walking across a glacier in the Rockies near Silverton, Colorado which overtakes a dirt road at about 11,000 feet. Where I was trudging across it there was about a 20% angle going up left to right. To my left the slope extend about three hundred yards down sharply where the glacier was cut in half by a creek. It was in June so it was cut clear through where the creek was.

I was already feeling a bit freaked by it all and then it happened, I slipped and landed on my side and starting sliding. I was able to roll onto my bakc and dig my heals in a little and it slowed me some but down I went like a bullet. I could see sky and nothing else.

Then I went airborne and knew that I must be sailing over the creek and wondered if I would drop twenty, thirty, maybe forty feet and land in a pile of boulders or tree trunks and end up perhaps impaled on a broken limb.

However, almost immediately I land about ten feet down, in about three inches of water with a bottom of tiny smooth pebbles basically sitting upright.

I was able to climb a broken tree which I had missed by about 20 or 30 feet and begin a slow deliberate climb back to the road.

It still feels a bit like a mystical trip through time and space when I think of it, and what is more I don't recall being particulary afraid "during" the episode.

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#7337By mysticsdream on Friday, December 10, 2004 - 1:54 am

What strikes me about both of those experiences and the Generals is that a) they happened fast, b)you guys were out of control c) you felt spared in some way.. well at least your number didn't come up.

I think I can understand what Al says about a mystical trip through time and space. Time itself becomes surreal. Its all in that instant.

When I was starting out as a driver I got into difficulties travelling on a country road and ended up flipping the car. I can remember the sparks of metal on bitumen, the whirling blue sky, the green fields, all revolving, I rolled about 5 times, front first (couldn't do it again if I tried). .. landed on the wheels. I had an athletic job to do that day, spent that afternoon running about 15 miles.

I can identify with the General in that sort of primal communication with God, the surrender, the peace. I mentally said to God my life is in your hands. I am ready to die, I commit myself to you. That sort of stuff.. it was not a bargaining process, just what the General calls 'surrender'.

The paradox with him, was that even as he surrendered, he heard a voice from his historic past, and it prompted him to take action. He regained control. I had no control, I just surrendered and felt my body mould within the car. I had no seat belt or protection as such. That he regained control maybe shows why he was a general.

Obviously his biography details an almost daily routine where as a fighter pilot his life is at risk. He loved the adrenalin of combat while hating war. His story is not neatly wrapped into a saintliness.

But that particular day left him with a residue, that life is a blessing, enjoy it... I guess it also left him with a mystery of why did this happen. I'll let you know if he solves the answer to that question.

I think living as if we are in the hands of God is probably a good thing. Living as if each day is a bonus probably makes us happier.

Probably looking back to my experience I repressed a lot of it. Never felt shock. Within an hour or so I was running around as if nothing had happened. Maybe I never dealt with it.

I sometimes think back to that instant and my silent conversation with God and think how stupid I was. I saw the choice as life or death.. in reality the rest of my life could have been in a wheelchair.

But in that instant of facing death, and surrender I didn't think of the other more scary scenarios.. a) I might have injured or killed an innocent person or b) received permanent injury.

Interesting too about change.. the General more or less said he went on being much the same person, except in his faith journey with God. Its really hard to see how he changed even though he talks about dieing that day and being reborn. Nor is Clancy writing that sort of story.. he writes a technical story about the General and the airforce.

I wonder if the experience with God/ death changes you.

Al do you want to share how the heart business makes you feel. Obviously that is not the same sort of instant encounter. It had a longer lead in time etc. Has it changed you?

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#7340By Albert on Friday, December 10, 2004 - 1:32 pm

The heart faux/scare effected me more. At the time I was going through it, it definitely was not known to be a false alarm. There were days where the palpitations we so frequent and pronounced that I thought I could be launching into coronary thrombosis any moment.

But, unlike the situations where the probability of death jumps on us by surprise - where we can just "not deal with it" - go on a run - or in my case we went out to eat after my hike - the thoughts of our demise that build on us slowly have built in provisions for dealing with it. Namely the time factor not only allows the opportunity to dealt with it, it takes over your thoughts. You can sit at a computer and work or drive down the highway and all the time just under the surface of your thought process is the dealing with the possibility of your impending end.

How did it effect me? Until that particular involvement, I felt young and strong and somewhat invinceable even at the age of 54. Now, I feel vulnerable and my teflon coating and bulletproof zone have dissolved. That is the bad part.

However, I show my love for my wife more. My coffee tastes better everytime. And, every morning I wake up, it looks like a great day whether it is raining or cold or whatever.

It made me a bit old, a bit wiser, and a bit more in the moment and appreciative of all blessings.

I don't believe our end is pre-ordained, but I do believe that some of us get repeated lessons of the same kind until we get the message, and Mystic and MW, I am on some severely borrowed time.

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#7345By mountainwoman on Friday, December 10, 2004 - 6:32 pm

Thanks for starting this thread, Mystics. It is very interesting.
I have had two car accidents that should have done some damage. I also fell down a mountain (slid hundreds of feet down on my backside) when I was about 11 or so. And I had a head to head encounter with a car from the back of a toboggan that was being dragged behind a ski-doo. When you think of me as hard-headed, you probably don't know just how right you are *lol*.
In the end, I do remember the sense of suspended time and a sort of oneness with the event and all that is a part of it - this kind of thing certainly brings on a different state of awareness. I don't remember thinking about God except for when I was sliding down the mountain at which time I remember being mad at him for letting this happen to me!
Albert you have been saying that you are on borrowed time for over a year now. I do not understand what you mean by that and why it keeps coming back. You appear to be healthy, active and interested in staying alive. Can you say more?

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#7346By Albert on Friday, December 10, 2004 - 8:49 pm

Oh ... I just mean that I have met with numerous incidents that were either a few inches or a few micro-seconds aways from my doom and I am still clicking along.

Many close calls.

And I too recall that detach body-less feeling - unafraid - just as MW says - at one with the moment. The whole world could have been gone except for a tiny capsule around my space and moment.

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#7352By mysticsdream on Friday, December 10, 2004 - 10:41 pm

The General like Al had that sense of borrowed time.. not so much borrowed, but as if every day is a blessing because control of one's life was nearly forfeited ... but it didn't stop him pushing the envelopes of experience but he did live with a greater sense of having been spared or saved in some way. As if he had received a gift that he could never repay.

Al I guess there are many dialogues with the death,, sometimes the longer we have to deal with it takes more courage. In the instant of chaos we surrender to possibilities and maybe some of us feel that sense of being in the hands of God... maybe the longer term struggles are times when we come to understand more about ourself, and what it is to live.

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#7358By Carlan on Saturday, December 11, 2004 - 3:31 pm

I think that it is too simple to say that we are under God’s constant control every second of every minute of every day of our lives and that while under that control we are incapable of controlling what is happening to us or controlling what is about to happen to us. I think that we are in control to the extent that our mind and our body and our surroundings allow us to control circumstances and other instances. I do not accept that God controls us like robots and puppets. I don’t believe that. I do believe that God created us to live our lives as human beings and not as wolves or crabs or as a tree or a rose bush. I do believe that we know of our impending death that we as humans know await all of us. I do believe that when we face death and its immediacy we become very aware of our vulnerability that we may not or that we cannot stop our death from occurring to us or to anyone or anything else. We do realize that we are mortal and that our mortality is ending and ending now. I think that we struggle with the possibility of our dying and our loved ones dying everyday. I think that we know that we cannot save ourselves or anyone else from death. I think that we know that upon our death that what we called and what we knew as certainty is forever gone. I think, then, and only then do we realize that thing that we’ve always called God is now become the only certainty that there is and that there ever really was.

Near death experiences make for interesting stories and tales and some of them if not all of them are just that stories of near death experiences and nothing pass that, i.e., that is they are not any of them actual death and the passing back into God.

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#7369By mysticsdream on Monday, December 13, 2004 - 3:14 am

I guess you need to experience the sense of "surrender" to understand there are times we step outside the controls of our life. All I can say is that is was a strangely peaceful moment.

Al I'd be interested in hearing you reflect on what sort of things have changed you and how.. for instance probably your son changed you. My son was almost killed and that changed me, but not necessarily for the best. I think at a deeper level I felt an existential angst I never shrank off. There was a level of trauma there so deep, it touched me to the core. I still have a residue of so much joy he lives.. so that too was an impact.. but within the depths it touched me... and shook me. My own near to death experience/s seemed to have little impact by comparison.

I think divorce changed me too. One thing I did after that (well apart from that) was to travel more.

Mountainwoman hoping you feel I have a credit of questions... and changing the subject... but not completely from what I have asked Al.. Thinking back on your music and how it reflected you.. how did it change and why. Unfortunately I never could open that file you sent me.. but I bet you sound better than Joni Mitchell... as for Leonard Cohen.. (only joking).

While I'm off all subjects.. I imagine mysticdreamer probably suits you better than me.. no thats not a proposal.. its just meant to be a compliment. Anyhow you may be hard headed but you are marshmellow at heart...

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#7373By Albert on Monday, December 13, 2004 - 12:44 pm

Well, I have no son. I have two grown daughtes, but the most profound impact it had on me was to make me perpetually aware of my mortality. That is a frightening proposition but, once dealt with, it is an enlightening one as well. I am sure I have broken no new ground in this realization, however, I don't think most people heed the warning that time is running out. It starts running out the moment we exit the womb.

It has made me appreciate smaller joys much more. I am grateful that I get another day each morning. I get up just to watch the sunrise when I am off work.
I go for cold swims in the lake.

I have talked with old friends about old problems and mended a few fences. I have told some people how I feel about them (good feelings) which has not be an altogether good thing but I felt they had to be said.

I take some chances now. This Friday I am singing for a group of 4th graders. I am very mediocre at best but I love it and the kids will too, so I am allowing myself to sing in a mediocre way to kids for fun, and not feel like I have to be "good" to do that.

These are the sorts of things that indicate the ways I have changed.

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#7376By Carlan on Monday, December 13, 2004 - 3:02 pm

I understand to surrender is to give up ones place or one’s things or one’s life to another person or persons or thing. In my world my God does not care one way or another way if I “surrender” anything or not because my God is above and beyond all of that kind of thing. Perhaps, if my God were a human than it would make sense that that God would be like a king or a queen or a dictator or a president or a father or a mother and would require my “surrender” of my soul or my life or my property or my money or my human ness to Him or Her but fortunately my God is not human and has set no requirements that need fulfilled to glorify that which is all already God’s anyways. Humans in their thinking and reasoning need “surrender” and need reassurance and need love and need to feel needed and need to feel important but not my God. My God is God!

Mystics, I am very happy for you that you did not have to bury your beloved son and I hope that you never have to do such a heart and mind wrenching ordeal ever.

I think that most of us that are parents out here hope and wish beyond all of our other wishes that we never had to bury our own beloved children. Tragedies like this happen every day to some parents all around the globe and we all know that they do but if you are like me you hope with all of what you are that that particularly hateful tragedy never happens to us. If it has happened to you, you have my deepest heartfelt condolences.

Mystics, I am like you in that I am very grateful for everyday and for every minute that my son is allowed to exist with me on this world. You see, I love him with all that I am!

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#7377By mountainwoman on Monday, December 13, 2004 - 6:45 pm

Mhmm... this in acquiescence to Carlan and Albert. Go for it, Al! I'm sure the children and you will be delighted.

Mystics, thank you for the compliment and I do believe you might be on to something there. There have been comparisons to Joni Mitchell - in her early days. You may be able to hear me still on Barbaralewis.com where it is indicated "Introducing littlemountain" - if either still exist.

How did my music change? There has not been music for me for some time now. I have lost the caluses (?) on my fingers and can only play one song at a sitting now when I used to play hours without stopping. So music went to silence over the last couple of years. I was a fervent Christian (like Mandy) in my younger days. I floated up with the angels when singing with the choir during mass. I was an intense teenager - the type that wants to save the world, as I formed one folk ensemble after another and sang anthems - others' and my own. That stage lasted through the first part of my twenties - at which time I had a child and fancied myself an astute observer of humanity, feeling quite free to comment. In my late twenties and early thirties, I did the rock'n'roll thang. I sang in bars and at weddings and one-night gigs around the province. In my mid-thirties I went to university to get a music degree and rediscovered my penchant for propaganda, which I set to poppajazzonfolkinblues. Eventually, I came to see it all as useless self-indulgence. Now I sing if my heart is glad but I don't write, record or perform for audiences anymore. And that is how my music changed over the years.

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#7382By Albert on Monday, December 13, 2004 - 7:38 pm

She sings very well Mystic. I have heard a piece of hers ... excellent.

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#7385By mysticsdream on Tuesday, December 14, 2004 - 5:20 am

Well it was a good explanation in any case.... by both of you.

mmm dreams and passions mountainwoman... here's to them and acquiescance is OK too.

I'm not sure how I've changed.. I think my musical tastes probably have. I probably enjoy someone like Mark Knoffler more and Madonna less. I can't even imagine why I once bought so many Phil Collins CDs, I think I went off him when I read his autobiography.

I've curbed my CD acquisitions over the past years.. and now I couldn't even tell you who sings what.

Its very good you can risk being imperfect and of course its great to be able to communicate and make the most of minutes.

I guess one way I've changed is to become more environmentally conscious. I guess I make more effort to be a good neighbour these days, as I have more time. Sometimes my communication skills are better than others, certainly I tended to have become more withdrawn. Probably since my last relationship ended I have lacked initiative and thought why bother.. but lately I have attended a few functions and surprised me... like finding.. ooo is that person still there within you.. how amazing I thought you locked him away.