From Clicktivist to Activist Taking Caring to Another Level
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November 21, 2013 Vol. 190, No. 32 www.adventistreview.org November 21, 2013 ADRA Aids Philippine Quake Relief 9 Highest Flight Ever 22 Married, but Alone on the Sabbath 26 From Clicktivist to Activist TAking cARing To AnoTHER lEvEl Devotional By DAVID B. SMITH AND LONNIE MELASHENKO t happened 50 years ago this month: National Tragedy perhaps one of the most wrenching Now, on a crushing Friday afternoon, Iflights in the history of aviation. Swindal had to take off from Dallas for the worst two-hour-and-eighteen- Air Force One minute flight of his life. The last hour Jim Swindal was the pilot of a Boeing on the ground had been pure agony for HIGHEST FLIGHT EVER 707 with the tail number 26000. The Swindal and everybody else: a hot, per- Jackie Kennedy was one of the few flight, and not even Swindal’s breath- Secret Service called it “Angel,” but most spiring delay while Lyndon Johnson who did participate. “Three years in the SOArINg HIgHEr THAN taking 41,000 feet. But a trip that lifts us of the world knew it simply as Air Force waited for Texas judge Sarah Hughes to White House,” Manchester states, “had free from every last trace of this world’s One. It was John F. Kennedy’s flagship air- drive out to the airport and swear in the given [Jackie] an abiding respect for her ugliness and hate, a trip beyond the craft, loaded with elegance and $2 million new chief executive. There in the tail husband’s office. She understood the AIR FORCE ONE stars. Jesus promises us, “In my Father’s worth of high-tech hardware. It featured area of Air Force One was a large coffin, symbols of authority, the need for some Secret Service agents track its every move; from it all. He wanted to lift him higher house are many mansions. I go to prepare offices equipped with electric typewriters, a Britannia model, solid bronze. Kenne- semblance of national majesty after the people stationed in unmarked cars along than he’d ever been before, remove him a place for you. And if I go and prepare a and subscribed to 15 magazines and five dy’s bullet-riddled remains were in it. disaster, and so she came.” In the the route visually confirm its passage from the pain of earth, the danger of bul- place for you, I will come again, and receive daily newspapers. Its presidential bed- Kennedy loyalists and Johnson staffers famous black-and-white photo by Cecil overhead. And this flight carried the dead lets and snipers and angry posters and you unto myself; that where I am, there ye room, catering to times when the chief filled the plane, sick to the soul as they Stoughton where Johnson is sworn in, body of the former president and also the cruel editorials. And so he did. In all his may be also” (John 14:2, 3, KJV). executive had to cross many time zones all grappled with painful tragedy and awk- the widow of John Kennedy is standing new president. There was no backup, no life, Kennedy had never been so far above Paul knew much about assassinations; at once, included a special bed with a mat- ward transition, as one administration right there next to him.* vice vice president. And 26000 had no earth before; the 707 roared toward the in fact, his own life ended tragically. But tress designed for Kennedy’s bad back. ended and the other one began, there in military escort for this trip. On the stars, climbing at the incredible rate of in 1 Thessalonians he writes about how Colonel Jim Swindal had already logged the sticky humidity of the 707 with the Flight “Behold, I comeground below, quickly the Pentagon set Air Force . .”4,000 feet per minute. Swindal didn’t we’ll soon be lifted up, caught up in the some 75,000 miles on Air Force One in a disconnected air-conditioning. Then at 2:47 in the afternoon, CST, Air bases on standby alert, with pilots level off until they were at 41,000 feet, clouds. And then we’ll head out for a little more than a year since its commis- William Manchester’s standout book, Force One lifted off fromOur Love Field. mission Just is“belted to inuplift and ready to go.”Jesus Christapproximately by eight presenting miles above the celestial stories journey that takes of us Hisfar beyond sioning. He was dedicated and loyal, both The Death of a President, helps us focus: three hours and nine minutes earlier Captain Swindal had to fly that plane car- scarred world and its miserable Friday. the clouds, to a city that’s the capital of to the presidency and to this thirty-fifth Who should participate? Who should be the plane had touchedmatchless down for a victo- love,rying news the dead body of his hero.His It was present workings, helpthe universe. for To knowing a city that’s home. It’s a president, John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Ear- in the picture as Lyndon Johnson is rious parade. Spirits had been high; cel- November, with early sundowns. Flying west long, long way away, and frankly, we lier in 1963 he had flown his hero to Ger- sworn in? LBJ had already expressed in a ebration and sunshineHim and confetti better, andto easthope to Washington, in D.C., His Air Force soonOne What return. a flight want it to be a long, long way away from many for the president’s famous “Ich bin general announcement to the whole were in the air. Now nothing but dark- was quickly immersed in shadows and then earth and sin and death and the endless ein Berliner” speech. plane: “If anybody wants to join in in the ness and tears. in darkness that made the gloom more that’s going rows of tombstones at Arlington swearing-in ceremony, I would be happy Air Force One is the most secure plane unbearable. “It was the sickest plane I’ve ever National Cemetery. God’s angels will and proud to have you.” But Swindal in the world. Every trip is exceptionally been on,” Mac Kilduff, a Kennedy advisor, to be! gather His children together from the and many others were simply too grief- guarded in terms of its flight path. The told people later. But no one seemed to feel it four winds of heaven and lift us up to stricken to join in. Their president was plane zigs and zags, taking unorthodox as did the captain. Manchester writes: “No meet our Lord in the air (see Mark lying in the box. routes for utmost secrecy. On the ground aircraft commander had ever been charged Flight—Again 13:27). “And so shall we ever be with the with so grave a responsibility, yet he won- Fifty years later our world is just as Lord” (1 Thess. 4:17). dered whether he could make it to Andrews. horribly scarred and miserable. It still Shout “Hallelujah,” friend of mine. He was near collapse. ‘It became,’ in his harbors assassins and hurt of every What a flight that’s going to be! n words, ‘a struggle to continue.’” kind. Hate is as cheap as the Internet. Swindal had clearance to take his Leaders fall to bullets or scandals. Ter- * Quotations from William Manchester, The Death of a President (London: Pan Books, 1967). beloved president home at 29,000 feet, a rorists obliterate our tallest buildings pretty standard level even today. Flights and slaughter our most innocent DAVID B. SMITH IS THE AUTHOR OF often climb up to these levels to avoid infants, loved ones, and friends. We FINDING WALDO AND RACHEL MARIE, turbulence. But with all that ache in his keep visiting more hospitals, attending STORIES SET IN HIS HOME COUNTRY heart, and with the defiant skyline of more funerals, and standing in more OF THAILAND. LONNIE MELA- Dallas just behind him, with all the cemeteries than we ever wanted to. We SHENKO IS A REVIVALIST FOR THE hatred of people, the cities, and angry need a Swindal flight. COLUMBIA UNION CONFERENCE. civilizations just below him, spreading Except that what God’s Word prom- out in all directions, Swindal ises is infinitely better. Not Dallas to Need wished he could take his Washington, D.C., not a Boeing 707, not Pix beloved president away two hours and eighteen minutes of (1046)18 22 22 8 www.AdventistReview.org6 | November 21, 2013 |(1047) 23 COVER FEATURE ARTICLES DEPARTMENTS EDITORIALS 18 From Clicktivist 14 Dear Father . 4 Letters 6 Bill knott to Activist sylvia Renz Go Ask Erica Janelle Collins A son tries to answer 7 Page 7 Can the world’s prob- his father’s decades- 7 GeRalD a. klinGBeil lems be solved in front old questions. 8 World News & Invisible Web of a keyboard? Perspectives 2 2 Highest Flight Ever 13 Give & Take DaviD B. smith anD l onnie melashenko 17 Cliff’s Edge The night Air Force One carried a president’s body 2 5 Back to Basics 2 6 Married, but Alone 2 9 The Life of Faith on the Sabbath katheRine CaRey 3 0 Etc. ON THE COVER A day of worship—for her but not for him 31 Reflections Southern Adventist University NExT WEEk graduate student Catie Whit- ing shows a picture to children Cartography of Faith in a Masai village in Kenya Not knowing where we’re during a mission trip in 2013. going can be so traumatic that (Courtesy of Sharon Pittman) we can’t enjoy the journey.