Evening over Pagham Harbour. Low tide. Sunset. You’d almost think it was untouched by humans- except for the giveaway marks in the sky.
We are underneath one of the main flight routes into the UK, and the sky is laced with condensation trails from the jets heading to and from Gatwick & Heathrow.
These airliners fly high enough to be virtually inaudible; it’s only the contrails that give them away. Up there, the crew and passengers look down on a strangely flat world where all the small features are blended into a slow-moving carpet. Down here, we look up at the big jets which are shrunken by distance into fluffy-tailed specks. We don’t know “them” and they are just passing by.
I’ve never tried to count the flights of a typical day. Thousands of nameless lives passing overhead; untold gallons of aviation fuel burnt. Business, pleasure, or tragedy- they all go over my head. Even the marks in the sky dissipate swiftly- until the next plane passes by.
Perhaps the sunset would look better if the planes didn’t go overhead. An unspoilt sunset is a rarity: the Wright brothers could scarcely have imagined the outcome of the next 100 years when their primitive “bird” changed everything by triggering an age of “easy” travel.
Unintended consequences. Flight enabled civilian transport and opened the world up to almost anyone. But it also has military significance- it didn’t take long for politicians and soldiers to add guns and explosives. I can’t even imagine the number of lives lost to the impact of powered flight. Few inventions have no “downside.”
Humanity is leaving its tracks all over the globe, for good and ill. We are passing by, and trampling across many beautiful aspects of our world. When we give account for our stewardship of this planet, the signs of our “passing by” will speak loudly on behalf of the voiceless… and God will interpret our acts and our motives.
The Reflectionary 