On a spectacular summer day, hang gliders were happily taking off from a mountaintop in the German Alps. MICHAEL PABST, who was in his early 20s at the time, stepped forward for his turn. His feet had "barely left the mountain" when he saw it: A thundercloud a good distance away started to move across the valley toward him. "The strong winds inside a thundercloud can rip a hang glider in two," he says. "We were made acutely aware of this danger in our training to get a glider's license." Michael tried frantically to steer down to the landing site, but instead found himself floating upward, getting sucked into the cloud. "I was completely helpless," he recalls, "and I panicked." But just as suddenly as the black cloud hovered, a verse from Psalms popped into his thought: "The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea" (93:4). What he heard and felt so clearly was that there was a power far more powerful than the wind force enveloping him.
What happened next? Michael yielded to God's power. The thought came: "Divine Mind is in charge. This is God's show." His fear began to fade. Little by little he was able to maneuver the hang glider away from the cloud, as the huge dark shadow receded. "After what seemed like an eternity," he laughs now, "the beeping on my climbing indicator meant that, thankfully, I was losing altitude." The ground turbulence was so strong that he flipped in the air but landed on his feet—"like a cat." He climbed out from under the hang glider, safe.
Over the years, Michael has gotten lots of practice landing on his feet, as he continues to learn about yielding to God's power in all facets of his life. A Christian Science practitioner and teacher, Michael lives in Shrub Oak, New York. He currently lectures on Christian Science in the US and Europe as a member of The Christian Science Board of Lectureship. When we sat down in the Journal offices in Boston, our conversation began by coming face to face with recent statistics about God and religion.
