Airport Elevator Waiting Rooms

    It strikes me every time I fly that airports are kind of like a cross between giant waiting rooms and elevators. I don’t mean the waiting room as in waiting at the gate, but more of the mentality. We shuffle through all of the check points and then arrive at our gate. Then, we sit and wait – like I’m doing right now – in those semi-comfortable chairs. But, if you take a look around it kind of resembles the feel of and mentality of a cross between an elevator and waiting room. There are of course a few exceptions to the rule, but for the most part, we don’t really talk to the people we don’t know. We try not to sit right next to someone if we can help it. I have to admit that I find it kind of funny.

    I really enjoy flying; I think I always have, particularly in small planes. My first flight was when I was a little girl. I don’t remember it, but I have heard the stories. Apparently I watched the ground fall away from a Cessna taking flight, and my comment was that I had to go to the bathroom. Promptly falling asleep soon after, that problem resolved itself; but, a love of flight was born that day. Since then I have flown with family and friends, by myself, and for learning about science experiments. It really is a remarkable feat, taking a metallic cylinder with engines, a tail, and wings, and pushing it hard enough against the forces of the air and atmosphere to create thrust and lift. How magical it must have seemed to the first flyers. I think of Orville and Wilbur in their spruce and canvas bird, how amazed they might be now to see the trans-Atlantic birds.
    Part of it is the mystery of how it works, I mean we know how the engine works and how the principles of science work – but there is still so much that we simply do not know. It’s a beautiful, magical mystery and one that I hope I continue to enjoy my entire life. The other part is the view that flight offers us. Certainly there are conveniences which are unique to truly being to travel much closer to “as the crow flies.” But, the view of looking down through those port hole windows is a truly unique perspective. We can gain a glimpse of it on a bluff or even more so a mountain. But, at thousands of feet above earth, the ground itself becomes a work of art. Tapestries of fields, webs of roads – they stretch out over the land. Rivers glint like poured silver, a filigree of delicate and immense proportion to decorate the world. Oceans are not mono-colored, but have many different shades of blues, grays, and greens. The sky itself takes on a different look, as the location we are in within the atmosphere is different; we see the top of the clouds.
    We sit in the airplane, in the giant waiting rooms, and ignore this common experience. But, in truth we are sitting through something extraordinary together. Perhaps, just perhaps, we should break the mentality and really start to talk to our fellow passengers; after all we are waiting together.

Sunflower Lessons

   Driving to a nearby town a few weeks ago, I saw large wild sunflowers blooming along side of the road. There was paved road, gravel, and then sunflowers. They weren’t part of a formal garden, where someone had carefully selected the spot for them to grow. They weren’t being cultivated and tended carefully. These were where some sunflower seeds had been taken by the wind and were now growing.

   Driving along, I was thinking that we have some lessons presented to us in the most obvious fashions that we find, at times, to be unbearably subtle. There were lessons that were coming from that sunflower patch that day.a
   Standing in the sun, they were blooming where they were planted. They were not looking disheveled and at a pouted wilt because they didn’t like their location. It didn’t matter that mulch wasn’t placed around or that the border flowers are really just a collection of weeds. So, the lesson is to bloom were you are at. Don’t wait for the perfect garden landscape to be created around you. Create beauty where you are.
   Do I always succeed at this? I roll my eyes even thinking about it, No! No, I don’t. Sometimes I look around, and certainly have looked around, and wondered – why here, why now, what in the world is around me? Conversations would occur in my car, prayers that generally consisted of, “Lord, can you tell me why I am here? And I know you have a purpose, so can we just get it over with so I can get out of here? These people don’t even have a ....!” Thankfully, patience is a virtue because I haven’t found my car hurtling toward some life lesson just to smash in nose first because I wanted the time-table changed. I generally find out that my blooming where I was planted wasn’t just for the benefit of someone else, but for mine as well. And as for the time in-between, it was needed, chafed against – but needed..
   The other lesson was to bloom. Period. Those seeds, perhaps dropped by birds or winter stockpiling squirrels, met the ground, buried in, and grew. There was no checklist of further supplies which had to be delivered first, no waiting list of to-dos which were to be done before further growing would commence. They were planted, so they attempted to grow. That was their focus, grow because I can and should. We often have opportunities to grow and don’t. Why? We’re waiting for all of the to-do’s to be all-done’s and the circumstances to be just so. Don’t wait. Get started – go grow!
   Again, not always my strongest point. I love to have all of the parts in place, all of the information, all of the facts, detailed and highlighted maps with exit numbers marked in color-coded highlighter. I use pro/con lists and want plans of what something will look like long before I ever step foot into even deciding whether or not to step foot into it. Thus, growth can certainly go on the back burner. But, God has a way of pushing me forward, albeit reluctantly at times, and reminding me – go grow! “But, I don’t know everything yet, what if I fail?” Yeah, that is generally what it boils down to. The answer that comes back is one that humbles me and encourages me all at the same time, “Then pick yourself up and keep growing.”
   So go, grow, and bloom.

Don’t Wait

We wait until some momentous occasion to say, to tell the impact that someone else has had on us. We wait until a funeral, a wedding toast, until they are in the hospital or moving away. Why? I don’t know exactly. Maybe because it’s we crave security and this sort of puts us out on a limb of risk. Maybe because society tells us to put up a screen of separation between ourselves and others, to avoid being interdependent with another, being vulnerable.

Speak up today – tell someone who is special that they are special, tell someone you care about that you care and why. Don’t wait, you never know what tomorrow will bring.

The Lesson Repeated

In the verses before, Jesus emphasized that we do not know the hour, the time, the place when God will move. This is reinforced in the next two parables, in Matthew 25: 1-30. I’ll include the verses below, but instead talk about the lessons instead…


When will this happen? I am someone who likes a schedule, I like plans, lists, etc… I can roll with the punches, but do much better in the framework of a general schedule. Then, I would really prefer to know as much as possible ahead of time. What can I say, the world needs planners. Not terribly change resistant, so long as I understand the why of the change. I am the personality that would have been saying, “Um Jesus, could you give me some more information? I could plan so much better if I knew what and when.”


That is something that God has been working on in my life. I still use, and hone, my planning and scheduling abilities. It’s a busy world out there, and if I have any hope of not wanting to get flung off of this gravitational orbit on a weekly basis for a break, I have to have a schedule. But, at the same time, I need to relinquish the greater control and schedule to God. I have asked myself why that is so hard. If I trust God, if I really believe that He is always good – why is that so hard? Wanting to improve upon that in me, God has placed me in some situations where I had no choice but to either go cry in the bathroom (which I did at times) or to trust in Him, lean on Him. My leaning skills got better, my bathroom crying days got less. The trust leads me to want to keep the trust, to keep the trust I have been given by Him.


The Parable of the Ten Virgins
"At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. The wise, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep.
"At midnight the cry rang out: 'Here's the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!'
'Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish ones said to the wise, 'Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.'
'No,' they replied, 'there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.'
"But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut.
"Later the others also came. 'Sir! Sir!' they said. 'Open the door for us!'
"But he replied, 'I tell you the truth, I don't know you.'
"Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.


The Parable of the Talents
"Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his property to them. To one he gave five talents[a] of money, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. The man who had received the five talents went at once and put his money to work and gained five more. So also, the one with the two talents gained two more. But the man who had received the one talent went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money.


"After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. The man who had received the five talents brought the other five. 'Master,' he said, 'you entrusted me with five talents. See, I have gained five more.'


"His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!'


"The man with the two talents also came. 'Master,' he said, 'you entrusted me with two talents; see, I have gained two more.'


"His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!'


"Then the man who had received the one talent came. 'Master,' he said, 'I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid your talent in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.'


"His master replied, 'You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.


" 'Take the talent from him and give it to the one who has the ten talents. For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'