I then became rather tense myself as the plane started to taxi out to the runway, because the preflight talk from our pilot included a description of our route, an explanation of the safety features of the aircraft, and also a short prayer. I wasn’t disturbed so much by the ‘O Lord, we thank Thee for the blessing of this Thy day’, but ‘We commend our lives into Thy hands, O Lord’ is frankly not the sort of thing you want to hear from a pilot as his hand is reaching for the throttle.
