A Bird’s Eye-View

Learning to Live from a Heavenly Vantage

May 22, 2025

“Jesus asked [the blind man], ‘Do you see anything?’ He looked up and said, ‘I see people; they look like trees walking around.’”

~ Mark 8:23b ~

I’m sitting at the window of my hotel room on the eighth-floor in downtown Boston. Its on Beacon Hill adjacent to Massachusetts General Hospital. The cold passes carelessly through the “sealed” windows, pressing a persistent chill on me as I watch people walking below. I can’t see their breathe from up here, but its not hard to imagine.

I do this from time to time. Leave the small-town I reside in and raise my family in to go explore some big city. Chicago, New York, Boston. Honestly, whichever city is cheapest for that time of year suits me just fine.

Some see this as a privileged luxury reserved only for the spoiled and pampered. And while I don’t deny that completely, I tend to view it more as a therapy for the neurotic and the manic. A necessary salve to apply to my eyes so that, by God’s grace, I can, once again, remember how to see.

Typically, the pattern is predictable. Wandering through big cities, getting lost in the unfamiliar, anonymous while present in the crowd, I allow my mind to do the same. To follow whatever trail it delights, refusing to break its stride as it meanders down path after path. At times I meditate on various quotes, both sacred and mundane. At others I ruminate on particular situations with particular people, from both my recent past and those more distant. I wrestle with aspects of intimacy, facets of fatherhood, revelations of God, and even definitions of words I don’t often use like “menagerie” or “calliope.” And quite often, I’m drawn to the abstract. The more grand musings. The theological meditations. Or at least layers of the divine.

Oddly, ascending into the abstract, rising above the practical and the ordinary, grants me the gift of being more present in the here and now. Teaches me to see more clearly what’s right in front of me. Tutors me to recognize God in more than I typically allow. The abstract offers a bird’s eye-view able to observe the critter careening through the meadow trying to avoid the skyward predator searching for prey. Or at least a little snack.

I read recently about an astronaut who orbited the earth for several months. Upon his return, he expressed a profound transformation, a sacred revelation in how he saw and understood life—something called the “overview effect.” Staring at the earth from such a great distance sobered his perspective on how to live life on the earth itself. The cosmic view clarified his purpose, convicted his conscience that “we are living a lie,” that what we strive for, war over, and live for pales in comparison to what matters most.

The articles I read reported his message with a strange sterility, almost with a tone of “I’m not saying he’s weird, but….?” Almost as if what they were reporting was so absurd it could easily be in tabloids instead of trusted media sources. Almost as if they were attempting to translate a language that they’d never learned. A language foreign not in its form but in its content. In its soul.

I imagine the loneliness the astronaut felt hundreds of miles above the earth paled in comparison to the cavernous feeling of not being able to explain his epiphany when he returned home. Not able to convince others of the profundity only accessible from a bird’s eye-view.

It reminds me of coming home from a short-term mission trip. Serving anyone, especially in other countries, sobers the spoiled in ways words can’t assist. Returning home conjures a cocktail of guilt, relief, despair, and confusion. Trying to explain what you experienced, even to the most loving and attentive, can court an even greater loneliness. For when words fail, what do you reach for to explain what can’t be captured with sentences and syntax?

Yes, returning to earth can be jarring, but it’s the power of the bird’s eye-view I’m captivated by presently. For why is it that the further we travel heavenward the more understandable earth seems to be?

On my flight here, I peered over the quilted earth below, thinking of all the anxiety, all the unpaid bills, all the last breaths, every first kiss, and every broke-down van that must be happening at that exact moment. From the plane’s eye-view, the unity of all that’s below irons out the intricacies of life, offering perspective, peace, and insight oft overlooked. And yet, when I’m not in a plane, not wandering in a big city, conflicts and worry blind me to the pathway forward and the contrails overhead. I simply forget how to see.

Maybe this is why when John is alone on the island of Patmos, yes, Jesus came down to him (Rev. 1:10-20), but eventually, God invites John to enter “a door standing open in heaven” (Rev. 4:1). Why? So the beloved disciple could see. Could view earth from a divine vantage. Could gain a heavenly perspective on the earthly peril. Something akin to a bird’s eye-view.

I often talk with my kids about the difference between short-term and long-term solutions, always advising them to prioritize the latter. Which is terrible, I know. Quite often, the short-term is far more enticing, glamorous, and enamoring. We lustfully dream of fortune absent of the time and toil it takes to build enduring prosperity. We seek shortcuts. Demand the respect from our subordinates right now that can only be forged through years of service and stability. We steal, we gossip, we plow, we belittle, all to get quick results today, believing this is the way forward. This is how to get ahead.

But too often, short-term solutions lead to long-term tragedies. Positions of power acquired without the character to keep them in control. A meteoric rise that ignores the calamity present in the metaphor.

I mean, how often do we watch childhood stars rise to fame only to see them strung-out and entering rehab on the cover of some magazine in the Wal-Mart checkout line? How often do we witness the Powerball announce another victim of life-changing wealth only to learn, years later, they’re penniless and worse off than before? How often do we encourage or court the path paved with thirty pieces of silver instead of the marathon of faith filled with struggle and strife?

Expediency tempts even as it entraps, allures even as it devours anyone and everyone foolish enough to trust its embrace. All the while, the laborious “long-term” delivers wisdom even as it demands patience, proffers intangible treasures even as it produces joy without end. And yet, the long-term is, often, the road less travelled.

Such a shift in perspective, however, demands a different vantage. A broader view. A vision that looks past the immediate with questions that outflank the urgent, like, “If I do [this] instead of [that], who will I become?” Not just today, but in fifteen years, when the seeds of this choice blossom with fruit.

I’ve heard from hospice chaplains that in the days and weeks leading up to a patient’s end they experience a “life review.” A time of deep reflection where at death’s threshold, from the summit of life’s mountain, they peer down the trails of years gone by, reliving wrongs done to them and by them, revisiting moments of regret and remorse, victory and celebration. And, quite often, from this vantage, they express something to the effect of, “If I’d known then what I know now, I would do things so different. So very different.”

I’m enamored by deathbed wisdom, insights on life often acquired only at life’s end. Wisdom that sobers inflamed egos and passions with the simplicity of longing to live a life that simply doesn’t wait until life’s final breath to truly live. Wisdom that convicts wayward hearts to harness death’s vision to live life today from a heavenly vantage. A divine perspective enjoyed by angels, saints, and yes, even birds.