Delayed in Dallas

Warning: this is likely to be one of those religious posts.

I’m not real fond of airplanes.

During a recent trip, I’d been away from home for a lot longer than I wanted to be. I was eager to get home. As is usual, I was praying a lot during my flights. I had to change planes in Dallas. As I walked to the new gate, I prayed, “Please let me make my transfer!”

“Not this flight.”

Being the obedient soul I am, I whined, “But I want to get home!”

“Not this flight.”

Hm. I walked up to the gate counter to see if there was something I should be aware of. Just as I stepped up, the agent motioned for me to wait and picked up the microphone. “We are over-booked. If anyone will be so kind as to accept a guaranteed seat on a later plane, we’ll give you a $500 voucher toward a future flight.”

Now, I’d also been complaining that due to the emergency flight I had just taken, my husband and I wouldn’t get the vacation we’d been hoping for. Already prepped, I smiled and said, “I’ll take you up on that.” It helped that I was first in line.

I surrendered my ticket. Everyone who didn’t get on the flight was transferred to the same flight leaving in about 4 hours. Everyone except me, that is. For some reason, they transferred me to a different flight also leaving in 4 hours. I stared at the notice board and then went and checked flight numbers. Sure enough — two planes leaving at the same time for the same destination. They were on one, I was on the other.

Hmm. Okay. But I’d asked for a window seat, and I’d been given an aisle. I like the window seat. I can stare out the window and get lost…and there is nothing so beautiful as flying into Seattle at night.

“Whatever you’ve got in mind, you got my seat wrong,” I thought.

“You’re in the seat I want you in.”

Again, being so obedient, I tried to change seats 3 times — at 3 different ticket counters. One was suddenly over-burdened by a flight issue. The next counter couldn’t handle my flight because I was too early. The third couldn’t handle my flight until 15 minutes later. However, 15 minutes later we had a sudden gate change to a gate across the terminal, so they couldn’t handle my change at all. When I got to the new gate, they explained that it was now too late to change seats for this flight. Apparently, there would be no seat switching for me, even though I had been 4 hours early for my flight.

I had entirely too much fun in the Dallas airport. I recommend a Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Therapy Milkshake if you can find one! I took pictures of the planes and the sunset, road the tram around and around (just like Disney Land!), and did a lot of walking so my legs wouldn’t hurt during the flight.

When I was tired, I sat down to work on the final revisions for “Sisterhood.” The point of this round of edits is to question everything: do the time frames work? Seasons consistent? Descriptions consistent?

I was stuck on the descriptions of the grigori. Would people “get” them? Were they believable? How do you describe something like an angel, something so outside our three dimensional world? Could I get away with saying they were mostly shapeless, or only an outline?

This was the thought running through my head as I sat down in the aisle seat and waited to see who my seatmate would be.

I am of the opinion that we should always be ready to give an answer for our faith (I Peter 3:15) and I take the “with gentleness and respect” to mean that we should not take advantage of some poor helpless airline traveller stuck in the seat next to us! Hey, you read my blog, you’re fair game. I do *warn* you! But I’m not going to hijack some stranger who can not escape.

My seatmate — let’s call him Fred — was 20 hours into a 24 hour trip. He was tired, and one of the most congenial people I’ve ever been blessed to sit next to.

I hadn’t gotten my laptop out — we were still on the ground — when he struck up a conversation.

As this would make the flight pass faster for both of us, I relaxed and enjoyed talking with him, quickly realizing that he was why I’d been placed on this plane in this seat. You see, Fred wanted to talk about God and angels.

We’d only been in the air a few minutes when he explained that it was the anniversary of his mother’s death. He’d been with her when she died, and been shocked to see spiritual beings in the room with her. (Fred later explained his belief system as Christian Agnostic.) “There were shapeless beings in the room — really just outlines.” He paused. “You probably think I’m crazy.”

“Um…no. I would think you’d been reading my book, if it was published!” And so we proceeded to spend the next few hours talking about angels and God and prayer.

Remember: Fred considers himself an Agnostic. The problem with believing in creatures that extend beyond our dimension is that he found himself on the verge of believing in God. Since I’d seen the same creatures at my mother’s death, this left him — I hope — feeling a little less insane. Of course, the point of the conversation was not the existence of angels, but what their existence said about God.

Fred wasn’t sure what he thought about those spirits. Fred wanted answers — answers to questions about life and death and healing. Why are some people healed and others not? Where is God when we pray? I was returning from the bedside of a 14-year-old girl who had been very ill with a mysterious illness the doctors never identified. A friend was returning from a similar bedside. Both of us had prayed fervently for these girls. My precious girl survived. My friend’s did not. So Fred’s question was: why? Where is God in that?

And I think my answer startled him. My answer was: I don’t know. I don’t know why one person lives and another dies, why one person is healed and another is not. I don’t think we’re supposed to know. I think that we want everything to make sense to us — seeing only our own three dimensions. I think that God sees in four — and probably more than that! — dimensions.

I think that to God, life is like watching someone play a video game. When they finish the game, they turn around and laugh and chat about the experience. For us, trapped in the game world, death seems like the end, like the person has suddenly ceased to exist, a tragedy. But what if there is much more beyond these three dimensions? Then, so much of the petty bickering and worries of life become as meaningless as Ecclesiastes suggests.

He ended the conversation with: “I hope my questions haven’t shaken your faith.” I encouraged him to keep seeking God.

We both knew our meeting on that plane was no accident. I gave him someone to talk to about his questions, and he helped me put into focus the purpose of my novel.

Turned out I was in the right seat after all.