Day 55
Don’t Leave Your Wingman
When you see a Porpoise in the ocean, look carefully. You will always see pairs of two or more. Why? I guess that’s the way they were created. The Bible is very clear about this thing concerning twos. In fact, it’s nuts about it. God made Adam, then figured Adam needed Eve. God paired up Aaron with Moses. God told Noah to load two of everything on the ark before the flood hit. Jesus sent the disciples out in twos. The stories about God’s love affair with the principle of twos go on and on, ever since He created one of us. There’s a lot more to this than we realize in the life of faith.
I remember the scene in the movie Top Gun, starring Tom Cruise. In one of their first dogfights in Top Gun school, Cruise leaves his wingman to go for the shot on the enemy fighter plane. Cruise and his navigator Goose are disqualified and the aircraft they left to take the shot is destroyed. Later in the movie, Cruise demonstrates he has learned his lesson. He can be heard exclaiming in the midst of an intense air combat battle, “I’m not leaving my wingman!” He is rewarded by his competitive nemesis at the end of the movie who says, “you can be my wingman anytime.”
It was Thursday evening around 8:00PM when our phone rang. It was a young man named Gerald. He was beside himself. He was going to court in the morning to receive his sentence for a crime he denied committing. He asked if he and his mom could come over and speak to my wife and I for a while. We agreed.
Gerald sat on the couch with his mom. It was clear he had been crying. His mom was nervous about her son’s state. She didn’t have to say anything. Her watery eyes said enough. My wife slipped in next to Gerald’s mom on the couch and put her arm around her.
Gerald began by bursting into tears. This wasn’t just crying. This was an outburst born of intense fear deep within this young man’s soul. He was facing five to ten years in prison. He had convinced himself that there was no way whatsoever that he could even do two weeks in prison. He was despondent. All the possible legal maneuvering had been exhausted. It was time to face his sentence. Tomorrow at 10 AM.
We spent the next several hours talking together. He wanted me to accompany him and his mom to the courtroom in the morning. Unfortunately, I had one of those business meetings I simply could not sidestep, for any reason. He and his mom said they understood. They would go together.
A strange, yet powerful sensation came over me as they rose from the couch to go home. I told them both not to leave each other’s company tomorrow, under any circumstances. “Don’t leave your wingman,” I said. “Don’t let him out of your sight tomorrow,” I told his mom. “I won’t,” she responded. As they walked down the stairs of our front porch toward their car, I shouted it again, “Don’t leave your wingman!” “We won’t!” came their response from the dark.
I was asked to speak at Gerald’s memorial service a week later. After the court hearing where Gerald was sentenced to 7-10 years in prison, he was free on his own recognizance for 5 days before he had to enter prison. During the drive home from court, Gerald convinced his mom that he was fine and would like to drop her off at the house and just go for a drive for an hour or so. Mom gave him her cell phone to stay in touch and went into the house.
A few hours later mom called the cell phone. A strange voice answered the phone. It was a state trooper. Gerald had dropped off his mom, purchased a handgun, drove to the emergency room entrance of a local hospital and killed himself seated in the car. Gerald left two small children without their father. He betrayed his loving mother indelibly wounded by the consequences of “Don’t leave your wingman.”
Gerald lived most his life as a loner. He, like many of us, was unwilling to accept responsibility for the consequences of his actions. He was attempting to live a life of denial. For the last several years, Gerald had progressively abandoned his faith in God, exchanging this for the mirage of worldly security, led by his own wits. He had left his wingman long ago. As one author says, “And we have shown, time and again, our willingness to exchange anything – family, health church, truth – for a taste of security. We are vulnerable animals who seek to secure and to establish our lives in improper ways, living by our wits rather than by faith.” [i]
Leaving your wingman is a process, not an event. Yes, there may be that one moment where you recall pulling the stick to the left and leaving the formation. However, that choice is preceded by a whole host of other choices and experiences whose cumulative effect results in a final departure.
We live in a world that worships individualism, self-interest, self-actualization, self-determination and celebrity status. These values trumpet the glories of becoming independent and self-sufficient. However, the voice of the wingman says, “Most of us are never really happy alone, and that is because we were created for other people; we are not fully ourselves unless we are in communion with a whole range of people and connected by a host of relational bonds.” [ii]
No matter what confronts you in life, or how fractured your faith in God may be, the voice of the Wingman calls to you today, “Come to Me!” [iii] There are no exceptions to this call, no matter what your head tells you.
The story of Gerald’s life reveals that, “The most insidious thing about self deception is that you don’t know when you are deceived.” [iv] Porpoise understand this.
NOTES
[i] Hauerwas, Stanley and Willimon, William H. Resident Aliens – A Provocative Christian Assessment of Culture and Ministry for People Who Know That Something Is Wrong, Abingdon Press, Nashville, TN Copyright 1989 by Abingdon Press, p. 131.
[ii] Horton, Michael S. Where In The World Is The Church?- A Christian View of Culture and Your Role in It, P&R PUBLISHING Phillipburg, New Jersey © Copyright 1995, 2002 by Michael S. Horton P. 153
[iii] Matthew 11:28-30
[iv] Cole, Neil The Organic Church – Growing Faith Where Life Happens, Jossey-Bass, A Wiley Imprint Copyright 2005 by Neil Cole p.33.
