Souls on Board

 

 

There has been a lot about airplane crashes and mishaps in the news, including about passengers who seem to have lost their minds. Some of the accounts have happy endings, some are tragic, others are bizarre.

 

When a pilot has an emergency, whether on a large commercial airliner or a small private plane, he or she declares, “Mayday. Mayday. Mayday.” After the Mayday call then the pilot can transmit the nature of the emergency. Protocol dictates that Mayday be declared in an emergency, otherwise Air Traffic Control may think the pilot is just telling them of a problem and that ATC need not give emergency attention to the aircraft, alert emergency personnel, and clear runways for an emergency landing.

 

There are times in which a pilot will tell ATC of a problem and ATC will respond with the question, “Do you want to declare an emergency?” Sometimes the pilot will say “Yes,” sometimes “No.” It is obvious in some instances that ATC thinks a Mayday ought to be declared.

 

After Mayday has been declared, ATC has two standard questions they ask. “How much fuel do you have?” “How many souls on board?”

 

ATC wants to know how much fuel so that it can inform emergency personnel on the ground so they will know how much fuel they are dealing with in the event of a fire. (This will also let ATC know how quickly they need to get the aircraft on the ground or whether, circumstances permitting, the plane needs to burn off or dump fuel prior to landing.)

 

Knowing how many souls are on board is also transmitted to emergency personnel so that they will know the number of people requiring rescue.

 

ATC does not ask how many passengers there are. It does not ask how many crew members are on board. It asks, “Souls on board?” This is simple and straightforward and avoids confusion.

 

I recently heard a recording of an exchange between ATC and the pilot of a large commercial plane which had lost power to an engine shortly after takeoff and was returning to the airport after declaring Mayday. ATC asked, “Please report souls on board.”

 

The pilot responded, “257 passengers.”

 

Vickie and I looked at each other, and I said, “That isn’t going to work. ATC is going to want clarification. That pilot should know better.”

 

Sure enough, ATC followed up, “Please report souls on board.”

 

The pilot came back, “265 souls on board.”

 

The pilot’s first number of 257 failed to account for the crew.

 

An emergency is not the time to ask others to do the math. One total number is what ATC and emergency personnel are looking for, not 257 passengers and 8 crew members.

 

Where did this practice of “souls on board” come from? It seems a bit archaic in our society of nihilism where we are nothing but the products of time, plus matter, plus chance.

 

“Souls on board” is maritime term, a carryover from the world of ships and their crews and passengers, just as we use the maritime terms captain, first officer, and crew in aviation.

 

I suppose at some point “souls on board” will be replaced by a sterile term that fails to acknowledge that we are people who matter. Maybe it will be, “Please advise how many identification numbers you have on board.”

 

When God formed us in His image, he breathed into us “the breath of life” and “man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7).  Now I think there is much glorious mystery in the Beginning (Christ) in Genesis, and however it is that we sense creation unfolded, we ought not to be distracted that it occurred in and through Jesus Christ and that God made us in His image, and that we are not the products of time plus matter plus chance; we are valuable, we are loved, we are more than our physical parts – we are souls! We are mysterious beings whose genesis is rooted in God.

 

We are so mysterious that, as Pascal and others have observed, one moment we can be as angels, and the next moment devils. We are so mysterious that we have a sense that we ought to be something more than we are. Again, to reference Pascal’s thinking, my dog has never wanted to be a lion or anything other than a dog, the same with (as far as I can tell) cats, cows, and hamsters. Why is it that men and woman generally desire to be more than what they are, than who they are? Why do we have a sense of “greater things”?

 

Might it be that this reflects a sense of loss and that we have a void that we need to fill?

 

A beggar would not know what it is to experience the loss of a throne. A king who had been deposed would know, would remember, would desire restoration to the glory he once had.

 

We are not human resources, we are not commodities, we are not identity numbers, we are souls…even in our confused state, we are souls. We are not accidents looking for a place to happen, nor should we be duped into eating whatever we are given as hogs devour what is thrown into their pens. We are women and men created in the image of God…we are loved…let us recover the truth about who we are and how deeply our Father loves us.

 

To demonstrate the maritime roots of “souls on board” we can gain inspiration from Captain Arthur Henry Roston of the Carpathia. While another ship actually saw the distress flares of the Titanic and ignored them, when the Carpathia picked up Titanic’s distress radio signal Captain Roston had no doubt what he and his passenger liner would do, they would speed to the rescue through dangerous waters. After giving the necessary orders, Henry Roston was observed praying, he knew the danger ahead for his vessel, and he knew the danger facing the souls of the Titanic.

 

Every person whom we meet today is a soul, a person whom God has given life to, a person for whom Jesus Christ died. He or she is not a human resource, is not a commodity, is not even a conservative or liberal or a particular skin color or ethnic group or economic group – but rather a soul created in the image of God – no matter how deeply and sadly that image may be marred and desecrated.

 

I am reminded of Betsy ten Boom telling her sister Corrie that perhaps they would remain as prisoners in the concentration camp until the guards could be taught to love. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn had much the same perspective on the guards in his Soviet prisons, he saw how they were victims and had been dehumanized – beneath their callousness they were still souls.

 

Here is what is written on the tombstone of Captain Arthur Henry Roston:

 

In Loving Memory of

My Dear Husband

Sir Arthur Henry Rostron

K.B.I. R.D. R.N.R.

Aged 71 Years

Also Of

Ethel Minnie

The Beloved Wife Of The Above

Aged 69 Years

Sir Arthur Rostron

Captain of R.M.S. Carpathia

Saved 706 Souls From

SS Titanic 15 April 1912

 

There are souls on board all around us.

 

What will be written about us?