January/February 2000
Parachute Packers
by Greg Albrecht
| "Who is packing your parachute?" There are many people in our lives, both at present and in the past, who have carefully helped to pack our parachute. |
North Americans love lists. In the past few months we have devoured rankings of the "top ten", "most influential fifty" and the "most significant one hundred" people, places and things of the twentieth century. This list-making mania helped me to think about making a list of people and events that have shaped my life.
Charles Plumb is a graduate of Annapolis who was a fighter pilot based on aircraft carriers during the Vietnam War. After 75 combat missions, his plane was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. Plumb ejected and parachuted into enemy territory. He spent years in a North Vietnamese prison, surviving the ordeal, and he now lectures about the lessons he has learned from those experiences.
One day Plumb and his wife were in a restaurant when a man came up to their table and said, "You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the U.S.S. Kitty Hawk, and you were shot down, weren't you?" Plumb was amazed. "How in the world did you know that?" he asked. The man replied, "I know, because I packed your parachute."
Plumb says he couldn't sleep that night. He kept thinking about all of the times when he, as a fighter pilot, might have been rude to this lowly sailor, passing him on board ship without even saying hello. He thought of the many hours the man spent carefully working at a long wooden table, carefully folding the silks of each parachute, holding in his hands the lives of pilots he didn't even know.
As Plumb lectures today, he asks audiences, "Who is packing your parachute?" There are many people in our lives, both at present and in the past, who have carefully helped to pack our parachute.
How about the person who helped you learn to read? To ride a bicycle? To hit a baseball? What about the adults who volunteered in youth groups in which you were involved? The person who gave you a recommendation for college, or the person who helped to get you in the door for a job interview?
There are many parachute packers in our lives. Spouses, parents, grandparents, teachers, pastors and friends. Mothers who packed our lunches every day and carefully washed and prepared our clothes for school. Fathers who worked longer hours or took a second job so that we could have music or dance lessons. Grandparents who helped us pay for college education. They all labored tirelessly, packing our parachutes.
A few months ago, I was discarding some old files when I came across my notes for the sermon at my grandfather's funeral. I paused to remember him, and to take a look at myself, for his blood flows in my veins. He was an immigrant from the "old country", who came to the United States fleeing war and religious persecution. He and my grandmother had a family of 12 children. He worked hard all his life. As a farmer and railroad employee, he helped many hungry individuals and familes experiencing the Great Depression in Kansas. My "grandpa" was a producer -- producing what many of us today consume. He had plenty of faults, but he packed many a parachute for not only his family, but also for those less fortunate than himself.
Each of us begin the twenty-first century with a legacy and "a great cloud of witnesses," the term the book of Hebrews uses to describe those who went before us, preparing the way, providing roots and foundations. Join Charles Plumb in remembering both those who are helping you right now, as well as those who have helped you on your way in the past. You might not want to stop with remembering and honoring, but to go on to consider those parachutes you can help pack for the next generation.
Greg Albrecht's Plain Truth Commentary can be heard each week on several radio stations as well as the PTM website-www.ptm.org. Your prayers for our radio ministry are appreciated!