March 24, 2011--Snowbirding: GOD + U = :)

As a kid growing up in Brooklyn, I loved skywriting. I would watch in endless fascination as the single-engine plane circled overhead in lazy loops literally spewing out its smoky message. If it was a windy day, the pilot had to be adept so as to get all the letters in place before the wind tore them apart and made them unreadable.

All the airborne messages were advertisements for local merchants, none more prevalent than the ones for the Manhattan-based furrier, I. J. Fox. Over and over, from horizon to horizon, pilots etched in the sky--I J FOX FURS . . . I J FOX FURS . . . I J FOX FURS . . . I J . . . .

Wisely aware of what the winds could obliterate, they left the periods off the I's and J's. Except one time, when there wasn't even a slight breeze, as if to show off his airmanship, one belched out perfectly placed dots of smoke. My friends and I cheered so exuberantly that I suspected the pilot could see us jumping up and down 10,000 feet below on East 56th Street and maybe even hear us over the roar of his engine. “Must have been a World War II fighter pilot,” Heshy, who knew his history and atmospherics, speculated.

While we cheered, our mothers privately imagined themselves in Manhattan mink while in reality only the fortunate few in my neighborhood could afford something in Flatbush Persian Lamb.

So you can image how excited I was the other day, when on a windless afternoon in South Florida, when I looked up to check the weather, in the setting sun, again a single-engine plane was stitching a message in the sky, but of a very different kind--GOD + U = :) . . . GOD + U = :) . . . GOD + U = :) . . .

How times, I thought, and the world have changed.

Intrigued and eager to learn who was sponsoring this metaphysical message, through the Internet, I located a recent article in the Miami Herald, “Two Skywriters Use the Heavens As Their Pulpit.”

There I learned that pilots Jerry Stevens and Keith Poeschl deliver their sky-bourn sermons from a yellow crop duster named Holy Smoke. These boys, I thought, in addition to their unusual form of preaching, have a saving sense of humor. That, and the smiley face, made all the difference to the agnostic in me.

“These are God's love letters to his children,'' explained Stevens, 68, a retired aviator who started his skywriting evangelizing 12 years ago.

Since then, Stevens has taken 33-year-old Poeschl into his ministry, teaching him the art of skywriting. There are now two versions of the Holy Smoke fleet—a plane for each of them; one stationed in Fort Lauderdale, the other in Orlando, so they can spread their gospel from Miami to Disney World, including right here in the skies over Delray Beach.

“This isn't about us,'' Stevens told the Herald, “God is the one strategically putting those messages there . . . we're nothing more than the pen.''

Back in 2002, demonstrating that the pen is indeed as mighty as the sword, he was questioned by the FBI, after writing God is Great in the air over Palm Beach County. It was just a few months after those Anthrax-tainted letters started showing up with the message Allah is Great. Also, it was not too long after the 9/11 attacks, and several of the terrorists had lived and received their flight training in South Florida. Actually, they lived right up the road from where we spend the winter, in a gated community with the unlikely name of Hamlet. “To be or not to be” indeed.

Fully obsessed with this and how it triggered childhood memories, I couldn’t help myself and called Jerry Stevens who was more than willing to talk. I told him my I. J. Fox story and how the kids on my block loved watching the skywriters in action.

He wouldn’t say that much about his earlier life but did reveal that the impulse to write about God in the sky was more the result of a mid-life revelation than the product of a life of devotion. I got the impression that, as with many folks who later in life are “called” to God’s ministry, his past, from a spiritual perspective, was probably considerably less than devout.

But the idea for what he calls “God’s love letters in the sky” came to him while he was in church. “I was praying to God,” he told me, “asking Him to use me any way He likes. While doing that, on the organ, they were playin’ a hymn called, And Fill the Sky With his Praises. That’s all I needed. I guess you can say the rest is history.”

His mission also has a bit of a political edge. He complained that “they” have removed God’s word from all public places and, through his efforts, as God’s pen, “I’m putting His name back out there,” I sensed him winking when he added, “in biblical proportions.”

We chuckled together at that; and, since we seemed to be getting along, I said, “You of course know there are a lot of folks living and visiting South Florida who aren’t Christians.” I didn’t mention all the atheists but did add, “Like me, there are quite a few Jews here. I wonder what they might be thinking about what you’re up to. Especially at those times when your message is Jesus Loves You.”

Without missing a beat, Stevens said, “It’s true, I have had some criticism,” but pausing and chuckling again, said, “But Jesus loves them too.”

And with that he told me he had to run. Actually, that he was scheduled to take off in a few minutes. “If I fly over where you’re stayin’ up there in Delray, maybe I’ll dip my wings to you. It’s pilots’ way, you know, to say hello. That is if I’m not workin’ on the smiley face.”