The Rapture didn’t happen – not in the way notoriously predicted. But on Friday at work we took a few minutes out to watch a hummingbird cam on the Internet where the live image showed a bright-eyed baby hummer on the brink of fledging. (My co-worker supplied a priceless voiceover: “Oh, I gotta preen first – what happens if I wave my wings real hard? – I’m afwaid!! – is that wind under my wings? – better preen some more – ooooh, is that a lawn mower I hear? I better hang on to the edge of the nest harder – Mamaaaa!”) All of sudden the baby strongly waved his wings and flew, up and away. Humans watching on the Internet all over the world cheered. And yesterday at the Soaring Club of Houston, seven Civil Air Patrol cadets got introductory rides, a couple of solo students took flights (can we say fledging?), a club pilot flew his beloved home-built Woodstock glider for the last time because it’s going to a soaring museum, and a Medical Center doctor joined the club, took his first flying lesson, and came back all smiles. “When I fly in an airliner and there’s turbulence, everybody else gets nervous,” he said, “but I love it.” He came to the right place for exulting in turbulent air. Really, there’s rapture all the time, complete with the end of the old world and a new world beginning.