I was checking in for my flights at Tampa International
Airport. My itinerary said Tampa to DC to Frankfurt, finally to Addis Ababa.
The baggage attendant looked at me, looked at my tickets, looked back at me,
and said “Ethiopia. That’s a long way to be traveling all alone.”
I laughed it off as I do most things. It wasn’t until hours later,
miles above the Atlantic, that I realized what a silly thing that was to say.
I am not traveling alone at all. I am literally surrounded
by people. Every corner of each of the airports I’ve been to in the last 24
hours have been packed with human beings going and leaving home. Of course,
when the attendant said I was alone she didn’t mean in a general sense, but a
relational one.
But that too seems strange to me! I am only a handshake away
from making a new friend, embarking on a new relationship. I could meet the
great friend of my life on this plane ride! My situation is literally brimming
with more possibility to make human connections than the rest of my life on a
small private college campus.
How strange we see the world. What does it say about human
nature that we consider ourselves alone in a vast crowd of people if we don’t
know a single one of their names? A name is only a question away.
Isolation is
a choice, and though travel is conducive to it, what would it look like if
that’s not how we viewed it? I’m not traveling alone to Ethiopia! I’m going
with a few hundred future friends! All I have to do is turn to them and smile.
I was observing faces on a tram from my Boeing 777 to the
Frankfurt airport terminals. We looked miserable. We looked like cattle being
herded from one cylinder to the next and rocketed to another location. Faces
were blank, and almost no one made eye contact. I tried to see which couples or
groups there were traveling together but I honestly couldn’t tell the
difference between buddies and strangers. We all looked exhausted.
But what if the answer to this type of travel-weariness was
other people? We withdraw, find a quiet corner with our lap tops and our
coffees, and disconnect from our present reality to enter into another one less
present, less real. And we think that soothes us. But we need each other more
than we know.
Too often, when traveling, we think of other humans as the
problem, not the solution. Mister Mountain Man is in my way as I’m trying to
get my bag out of the overhead bin. Oxford Professor over here reeks of the
liquor he purchased onboard as he looks over a thesis on the crusades. Grandma
Edith doesn’t seem to understand the concept of stairs as we try to exit the
airplane.
Since when are people nothing more than obstacles? I am so
guilty of this. I think it might be why we feel like we occupy a separate dimension
when we travel on our own. People seem far, but they are often too close for
comfort.
This time, I would like to know what the man next to me at
this café is reading. It would be nice to find out what Grandma Edith plants in
her English garden, and whether her dog likes the new parakeet she bought last
Thursday. Does the middle-aged brunette across the aisle have children? What
makes these people tick? What do they love, what are they interested in, what
are they good at? Where are they going?
Simple questions to a complex world that there is so much to
know about. And that knowledge starts with the knowledge of other people.
We are never travelling alone, especially at the moments we
feel that we are the most isolated. No man is an island, but sometimes it takes
a short boat ride over to someone else’s shores in order to not be.
So whether you’re an avid talker, a wonderful listener, or
just a keen observer, realize what is around you. You are surrounded by living,
breathing expressions of an infinitely beautiful and creative God. This place is
a museum with the finest masterpieces on display. What a pity it would be if we
didn’t stop and realize it.
No comments:
Post a Comment