In the ’70s I flew across the country (Van Nuys to LaGuardia) in a four-seat Beechcraft Bonanza. The pilot was a Russian pediatrician named Vladimir. He’d agreed to take me and a guy named Gary in exchange for gas money. We left in the early morning, stopped for gas and lunch in Tucumcari, New Mexico, bunked in a St. Louis airport motel that night, flew out the next morning and arrived at LGA by the early afternoon. Anyway…

The fog was so thick when we were coming into St. Louis the air-traffic-controller guy had to talk us down. I was sitting shotgun and the air was pure soup, and I quickly fell in love with that soothing, Southern-accented voice, telling us exactly what to do, staying with us the whole way…”level off, down 500, bank right,” etc. When we finally got close to the landing strip and the fog began to dissipate, the landing lights looked like they do in this scene from The High and the Mighty. This glowing beacon of Christianity welcoming you, telling you everything’s gonna be okay, etc.

It was almost enough, during that moment and later that night as I thought about it, to make me think about not being a Bhagavad Gita mystic any more and coming back to the Episcopalian Church.