I’ve been flying kites since I was a kid. My first kites were made from instructions in a book of craft ideas that we had at our home. My father was a certified airplane mechanic, so I had access to a variety of lightweight materials and before long I was making kites that were bigger and more interesting than that first basic diamond kite. We lived in a small town and the kit kites that were sold in the stores were not very interesting and often didn’t fly too well. This was before the time when delta kites took over the low-end kit market. These days most kit kites will fly pretty well. At any rate, we made our own kites.

You would think that a place that is famous for its wind would be a good place for flying kites. We certainly did have plenty of wind, but many kites are designed to fly on light breezes and the sometimes-gale-force winds we had could tear up a kite pretty easily. Actually the best places to fly kites are places where the wind blows with a steady velocity instead of having lots of gusts and surges. But we did a lot of kite flying all the same. I learned to make kites that would take stronger winds. One of my favorite designs was the tetrahedron. It is a basic pyramid, made of six sticks with two of the four resulting surfaces covered with fabric. I can make a basic kite with straws, thread and tissue paper in a few minutes. Tie together four of the pyramids to form a larger pyramid and you’ve got a respectable kite. After that, the sky is the limit in terms of design. You can tie together four of the multiple-pyramid kites to make an even bigger pyramid. You can make bigger pyramids. I decided that since wooden dowels came in 3’ lengths, using dowels for the basic sticks would make a grand kite. The four pyramids made a kite that was as tall as I was. The problem was finding suitable line to fly the kite. It packed a big pull. Binder twine was strong enough, but it is fairly heavy, so after 100’ or so, the line began to sag and pull the kite down. Also the pull was too strong for me to stand still by myself. I either had to tie myself to an anchor such as a fence post or the bumper of a car, or I had to have an assistant to help me fly the kite. Flying it turned out to be enough work that it didn’t happen too often.

Here’s a bit of trivia for kite lovers. It is likely that the famous Benjamin Franklin electricity experiment kite was not a diamond kite as shown in so many illustrations. Franklin likely was flying a tetrahedron. Another bit of trivia: Alexander Graham Bell made a tetrahedron kite that was big enough to carry a human passenger aloft. They had designs on making an airplane, and did make a glider that was somewhat controllable.

I was an adult before I discovered two-line kites that can be controlled. During our years in Boise, we got to the Pacific coast often and I collected a bag of different controlled kites. Most of them fly with two lines, but I have a revolution four-line kite and with a little practice, I can get it to fly pretty well.

So here I am, in South Dakota, with a bag of kites that I don’t get out very often. I take them with me when we travel and I do have a “pocket kite” that has not sticks. It is a basic parafoil and it flies very well with two lines. This style of kite is used for several different kinds of sport kiting, including kite skiing on water and kite boarding with modified skateboards. Mine is a smaller version, very portable and easy to fly anywhere. It has the added advantage of having no structural sticks, so there is nothing hard to strike someone if there happens to be a person downwind when you bring the kite close to the ground.

Controlled kites are fun to fly and can do much more than a series of loops high in the air. They can be flown comparatively close to the ground and taken through a series of maneuvers. It does take practice and I’ve had kites hit the ground.

Spring is the season when I start thinking about kites and it is also the time of the year when kite festivals are held around the world. One of the famous festivals, the Thailand International Kite Festival, took place this past week. The festival features kites from over 100 countries. It is a surprising blend of space-age materials and traditional kite making. People have been flying kites in that area for millennia. Some say that kite flying originated in China. Whether or not this is true, there is a long history of kite flying throughout the entire region.

There is a display of fancy kites. This year they had the world’s largest Panda kites, and kites shaped like sharks, cupid, octopus, squids, frogs, turtles, monsters, dragons, tigers, and a lot of other creatures. There was a stunt kite competition, in which competitors have to fly their kites within a prescribed region in the sky, earning points for complex maneuvers. I would have loved to see the traditional Thai kite demonstrations. Chula-Pakpao kite fighting is an ancient sport in the region and is still practiced to this day.

I have a few too many hobbies for any one person and I have an unfinished rowboat project occupying my garage. I really don’t have time to fly a kite. But I do have a kite bag with everything I need just waiting for me to take out a kite. The wind is pretty predictable this time of year in South Dakota and there is an empty pasture not far from my home.

Traditional kite flyers speak of the religions aspects of kite flying. It has been touted as a spiritual practice. There is a close connection between wind and theological concepts. In both Hebrew and Greek, the primary languages of our Bible, the word for Spirit is also the word for wind and for breath. Flying a kite is dancing with the holy if one thinks of the wind as a gift of God’s Spirit. Being attuned to creation is one way to come to know the Creator.

It won’t be the Thailand International Kite Festival, but I may just go out and fly a kite. If you see me, just remember, I’m not playing. I’m doing theological research.

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