Good Guys and Bad Guys
With all the discussion on the economic woes and the political division of the nation, yesterday’s ceremony in Manhattan almost went unnoticed, certainly by me, at least. Chesley Burnett Sullenberger III, captain of US Airwaves Flight 1549, which plunged into the Hudson River on January 15 of this year, was honored, along with his crew, at City Hall by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who gave them all the keys to the city.
With all the discussion on the economic woes and the political division of the nation, yesterday’s ceremony in Manhattan almost went unnoticed, certainly by me, at least. Chesley Burnett Sullenberger III, captain of US Airwaves Flight 1549, which plunged into the Hudson River on January 15 of this year, was honored, along with his crew, at City Hall by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who gave them all the keys to the city.
Sullenberger, Sully as he is known to his wife and closest friends, in typical fashion, played the role of reluctant hero, preferring to defer to his crew and the rescue vessels that showed up after the ditching as the true heroes of flight 1549. To listen to him, all he had t
o do was land a plane in the water without breaking apart. Right, like a water landing happens every day, not to mention a safe water landing. Make no mistake about it, whether Sullenberger wishes to acknowledge his extraordinary feat or not, his actions that afternoon saved the lives of every soul on that flight. As I was listening to his interview with Katie Couric on 60 Minutes last Sunday, I was struck by two overriding character traits that were readily apparent: a humble, almost servant-like, presence, and a calming, steady-like maturity. Not the maturity we’ve come to associate with age. No, his maturity spoke far more about what was inside the man than how many wrinkles he had on his face and gray hairs on his head.
With an almost uncanny transparency, Sullenberger went through the final moments of the flight, never once either flinching from the gravity of the situation, nor basking in the glory and excitement it must surely have elicited. He had to be perfect in those last few seconds. The nose of the plane had to be up, the wings even, and the airspeed had to be no greater than takeoff speed. Even the slightest deviation of any of those parameters would’ve spelled disaster for all on board. And yet, with the odds against him, he calmly, meticulously became perfection personified and flawlessly landed the jet in the middle of the Hudson, with only a small handful of minor injuries to show for the bumpy ride. Anyone who thinks that is just a coincidence is fooling themselves. I am usually not given to say what so many of my Christian brethren would say: that God was in that cockpit that afternoon. I am still not completely over the numb nuts who after 9/11 had the nerve to say it was God’s judgment that America was attacked. And I’ve never been comfortable with the notion that God blesses some with life while allowing others to perish. This whole God’s will thing has had me spooked most of my life. And yet there was something about this man that spoke to a presence that was clearly not man-made. Call it a gifting, blessing, or whatever makes you happy, but on that particular afternoon, every talent the man possessed, both tangible and intangible, was called forward in the space of a few precious seconds to avert what otherwise would’ve been a certain catastrophe. Perhaps God was not necessarily in that cockpit, but those traits and talents that he bestowed upon Sullenberger, allowed 155 people to live to tell their family and friends how they survived a harrowing near miss that would’ve overwhelmed a lesser man.
And now, as they say, for the flip side. The news last week that Alex Rodriguez tested positive for steroids and then, in an interview on ESPN, confessed that he had taken them between 2001 and 2003 because he “was naive,” shook the baseball world. A three-time AL MVP, Rodriguez has hit 553 career homers. At age 33, the All-Star third baseman is the highest-paid player in baseball and regarded by many as the most likely to break Barry Bonds' record of 762 home runs. More importantly, he is considered to be among the most talented athletes in baseball, perhaps in all of sports. While I have never been a fan of his, and think his post-season performances have tarnished his otherwise otherwordly attributes, I have reluctantly tipped my cap to him. I also wonder what the fortunes of the Mets might’ve been had then GM Steve Phillips signed Rodriquez after the 2000 season.
o do was land a plane in the water without breaking apart. Right, like a water landing happens every day, not to mention a safe water landing. Make no mistake about it, whether Sullenberger wishes to acknowledge his extraordinary feat or not, his actions that afternoon saved the lives of every soul on that flight. As I was listening to his interview with Katie Couric on 60 Minutes last Sunday, I was struck by two overriding character traits that were readily apparent: a humble, almost servant-like, presence, and a calming, steady-like maturity. Not the maturity we’ve come to associate with age. No, his maturity spoke far more about what was inside the man than how many wrinkles he had on his face and gray hairs on his head.With an almost uncanny transparency, Sullenberger went through the final moments of the flight, never once either flinching from the gravity of the situation, nor basking in the glory and excitement it must surely have elicited. He had to be perfect in those last few seconds. The nose of the plane had to be up, the wings even, and the airspeed had to be no greater than takeoff speed. Even the slightest deviation of any of those parameters would’ve spelled disaster for all on board. And yet, with the odds against him, he calmly, meticulously became perfection personified and flawlessly landed the jet in the middle of the Hudson, with only a small handful of minor injuries to show for the bumpy ride. Anyone who thinks that is just a coincidence is fooling themselves. I am usually not given to say what so many of my Christian brethren would say: that God was in that cockpit that afternoon. I am still not completely over the numb nuts who after 9/11 had the nerve to say it was God’s judgment that America was attacked. And I’ve never been comfortable with the notion that God blesses some with life while allowing others to perish. This whole God’s will thing has had me spooked most of my life. And yet there was something about this man that spoke to a presence that was clearly not man-made. Call it a gifting, blessing, or whatever makes you happy, but on that particular afternoon, every talent the man possessed, both tangible and intangible, was called forward in the space of a few precious seconds to avert what otherwise would’ve been a certain catastrophe. Perhaps God was not necessarily in that cockpit, but those traits and talents that he bestowed upon Sullenberger, allowed 155 people to live to tell their family and friends how they survived a harrowing near miss that would’ve overwhelmed a lesser man.
And now, as they say, for the flip side. The news last week that Alex Rodriguez tested positive for steroids and then, in an interview on ESPN, confessed that he had taken them between 2001 and 2003 because he “was naive,” shook the baseball world. A three-time AL MVP, Rodriguez has hit 553 career homers. At age 33, the All-Star third baseman is the highest-paid player in baseball and regarded by many as the most likely to break Barry Bonds' record of 762 home runs. More importantly, he is considered to be among the most talented athletes in baseball, perhaps in all of sports. While I have never been a fan of his, and think his post-season performances have tarnished his otherwise otherwordly attributes, I have reluctantly tipped my cap to him. I also wonder what the fortunes of the Mets might’ve been had then GM Steve Phillips signed Rodriquez after the 2000 season.
Regardless, the point now isn’t Rodriguez’ talent, which is unimpeachable, but rather his poor judgment. Unlike Chesley Sullenberger, who intuitively knew what to do with the talents that God gave him, and who used his best judgment to avert disaster, Rodriguez,when faced with a decision about his integrity, opted for the easy way out. Mind you, I’m not throwing stones from a glass house.
No one, especially me, is in a position to judge another person’s motives. However, it is essential and fair to draw distinctions between individual responses to the challenges of life. Sullenberger, 3,000 feet in the air had seconds to react to his challenge and chose correctly; Rodriguez, on numerous occasions over a period of three years, consistently chose wrong. We are seldom given an opportunity to observe more closely two more divergent examples of character in an individual than this. The moral of this piece could not be simpler or more apparent. We can never be more than what we have been designed to be; those talents that we possess in whatever manner and degree that they have been bestowed upon us afford us the opportunity to live up to our potential and, one would hope, serve as a power of example to all around us. In the case of Sullenberger, his self-assuredness and confidence derived not from any arrogance or conceit, but from an indelible belief that he was the right man at the right moment in history to help those around him; in the case of Rodriguez, his insecurity led him to believe that on his own merits, his talent was insufficient to perform up to expectations without an outside aid. One lived within the talents God had given him; the other became his own God. One hopes that the majority of us gets it.
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