Moments of Spiritual Awareness

"During this period--years before I joined Alcoholics Anonymous--I was an enthusiastic pilot, and was on the return leg of a flight down the Jersey coast. The cloud ceiling was at about 1,500 feet, with little tails of scud, a hundred feet or so in length, hanging down from it. I was flying inland toward the northern Westchester hills, keeping close to the ceiling. Every now and then I'd dip down a little to avoid the scud. Neither I nor the plane was equipped for instrument flying. Each time I ducked the scud I lost a couple of hundred feet of altitude, and I could never seem to regain all of it--the ceiling seemed to follow me down. Treetops, power lines and occasional farmhouses were closer and closer.