Leavin’ on a Jet Plane

Prior to the summer of 2001, I had neither traveled out of the South, nor had I flown on an airplane. A mission trip to the Ukraine in late June finally checked both those items off my To-Do List. While packing for the trip, I put some Tylenol PM in my carry-on luggage. The whole point of the Tylenol PM was so I could sleep on the overnight flight from Washington, DC to Vienna. I don’t know what possessed me to go against these original plans, but I didn’t take the Tylenol PM. The lights in the cabin were extinguished, and everyone was asleep but the pilots and yours truly. I watched the flight status screen on the television which was in the back of the seat in front of me. It showed a map of our flight, the time we’d been in the air, the time we lacked until our arrival, the distance we’d traveled, the distance we had yet to go, the speed at which we were traveling…the thing even had the outside air temperature. I was completely mesmerized. And so it was that I arrived in Vienna at 10:30 am local time, ready to tour the town by foot (and an occasional subway) with only thirty minutes’ sleep. You read that right. Thirty minutes.

Like our own Bypass, Vienna’s Ringstrasse circles the city. Just off the Ring, there lies the Burggarten. In this beautiful garden are, among the national library and the butterfly house, several statues, one of whom is a tribute to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Goethe was born in 1749. He was a noted writer, scientist, and philosopher. I’m familiar with Goethe only because I collect quotes – little sayings from random people. One of the quotes in my collection is from Goethe:

“What is not in a man cannot come out of him surely.”

While Goethe was definitely not a man after whom we should pattern our own lives, he did make an astute observation. I think of it in computer terms: Garbage in, garbage out. As for our free time and our entertainment, we have to remember this concept. What we put into our minds is what will inevitably come out. We can’t put in gratuitous language, violence, and sex without it having an effect on us. Whether it be in the books we read or the television and movies we watch, we must constantly be on guard. How blessed we are to have a role model like Christ who said:

“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:21, NKJV)

What do you treasure? Are you putting into your life – your heart, soul, and mind – what you want to get out of it?