"Feels like the arms of God"

[Brisco 0]

Sat, October 26, 2002
He Can Fly!
Episcopal priest finds skydiving a path to spiritual enlightenment

By Greg Garrison
RELIGION NEWS SERVICE

BIRMINGHAM, Ala.

The Rev. William Wilson, a former Trappist monk who once lived in a hut as a hermit under a rule of silence, has tried many paths to spiritual enlightenment.

One of his most rewarding and insightful has been a hobby he started a year ago - skydiving. Jumping from an airplane, then falling more than a mile to the ground while relying on a parachute, requires a mystical step of courage analogous to that of believing in God, he said.

"It's a leap of faith," Wilson said. "It's a pure faith moment, gazing into the infinite."

Wilson, 65, has done 23 jumps. He says that the insights he has gleaned from his hobby, which sets him free-falling at a speed of more than 100 mph, helps him as he teaches contemplative prayer and offers spiritual direction.

"It was not a silly, trivial thing for a thrill," said Wilson, an associate rector at St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Mountain Brook, Ala.

He had to overcome his reluctance, like a new convert answering an altar call.

"It was scary as hell," Wilson said. "I just put my sensible fears aside."

A videotape of his first jump last year captured his terror.

"You'll see me clinging for dear life to the sides of the airplane," he said. "It's so hard to just let go and trust. But isn't that what life is all about, letting go and trusting? For any man or woman of faith, it is a leap of faith. You're risking the meaning of your life on the reliability of the person you are trusting in your leap of faith - in my case, Jesus of Nazareth. If he isn't your open parachute, your life goes down in a crumpled disaster."

Americans make more than 3 million skydive jumps a year, and many of them see it as more than just a thrill, said Sandy Carruth, the president of Alabama Skydiving in Pell City. "It's like when you're driving down the road and see a beautiful sunset - there's something spiritual about that," she said.

Wilson said he could feel the difference after a jump.

"My senses were sharper," he said. "I was more aware of my physical surroundings. I was crawling out of this cave of the heart where I tend to live."

Skydiving has been a complete turnabout from Wilson's first method of seeking the spiritual. "At heart, I'm really a solitary ascetic," Wilson said.

In 1957, at age 19, he went to Iowa to live in a monastery run by the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance. Founded in France in A.D. 1098, the monks were popularly known as Trappists.

They became famous for demanding absolute silence from the monks. The rule of perpetual silence didn't mean that Wilson could never talk, but conversation was kept to a minimum, he said.

After 25 years in the monastery in which he rose to a novice master, in charge of supervising new monks, Wilson went to live in a hermitage. Being cloistered wasn't enough. He even wanted to be separate from the other monks, living for seven years as a hermit monk in his own hut on the monastery property.

"I was seeking the way of renunciation as a path to mystical union with God."

Like a mystic, he felt that he achieved a higher level of consciousness.

"I received an insight," he said. "It was as if God said, 'The fullness of union with me that you desire, you already have it. It's my gift to you; it's impeded only to the degree that you refuse to love and be loved.' "

Wilson left the monastery and started a mission organization called Amistad, which still serves destitute Indians in the mountains of Bolivia. "I wanted to see Christ in the face of the poor," Wilson said.

But he said that while traveling in the United States to raise support for his mission, he fell in love. He left the Catholic priesthood to be married in 1989. He became a priest in the Episcopal Church, which allows married priests. Wilson and his wife, Susan, have two children, Will, 6, and Sue, 4.

He settled into a life of practical ministry, serving the church, counseling people spiritually and taking care of his family. But inside the quiet monk, a screaming skydiver yearned to emerge.

He saw a bumper sticker about skydiving and called the number.

"During about a mile of free-fall, it's a true experience of flying," he said.

"With speeds in excess of 100 miles per hour, with the wind rushing past, any asymmetry is going to throw you off," he said. "You only have one minute to get stable, to avoid tumbles and spins. I did some terrifying spins, like a ceiling fan. When the parachute pops open, it feels like the arms of God."

[skymama 37]

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"It was scary as hell"

heehee...Preacher humor!

She is Da Man, and you better not mess with Da Man,
because she will lay some keepdown on you faster than, well, really fast. ~Billvon

[hooked 0]

Thanks for posting this great article!

J

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Sometimes we're just being Humans.....But we're always Human Beings.

[flyhi 24]

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You only have one minute to get stable, to avoid tumbles and spins. I did some terrifying spins, like a ceiling fan.

Must have been freeflying. Some of that stuff scares me and I just see the videos.

Shit happens. And it usually happens because of physics.

[Guest]

Great story! Thanks for sharing!

mh

"The mouse does not know life until it is in the mouth of the cat."