Things I couldn’t help noticing on a trip to the USA..
I may have to re-evaluate my interpretation of Isaiah 40:31 “they shall mount up with wings as eagles”. Previously I had assumed this verse was a metaphor of blessing. Now I'm thinking it may be a metaphor for air travel, and therefore a serious warning of fearful judgement.
It's not that I had a particularly bad trip—no lost luggage or missed connections—it's just that I'm starting to think that if God had intended us to fly, he may not have not have gone so far as to give us wings, but he certainly would have made it a much more pleasant experience to ride in a Boeing 747.
For one thing, I can think of no worse place than an airplane to try to sleep—except perhaps a maternity ward in a busy hospital. But although the two places share a number of common features, including young infants screaming at their mothers' inhuman treatment of them, I understand that the discomfort of air travel is of a different degree to the discomfort of many mothers immediately after giving birth, and, fearing retribution from said mothers, I decline to compare my own suffering to theirs.
Of course one benefit mothers in labour wards have over airplane travellers is that, in what is tacitly agreed by most passengers, irrespective of what time it is, to be regarded as the “middle of the night” and an ideal time for sleep, they don't have flight attendants walking down the aisles asking loudly if anybody wants “to buy any duty free goods”. (Incidentally, do they really think we'll want to buy stuff that is double the price we'd pay for it on the ground just because they call it “duty free”?)
(Before clicking the link below to read the remainder of these musings, let the reader be warned: there is no profound Christian reflection to follow. Avoid disappointment—stop now.)
Now, let me reflect on the four (yes four!) different airports I encountered in the journey to my ultimate destination:
Sydney: Busy and familiar. It has the advantage of being “home”. I look forward to seeing it again.
San Francisco: Busy and filthy. Also has the feature of being more secure than Fort Knox or the Royal Australian Mint (though a recent court case suggests the SF airport may have a slight edge over the latter). Not only did we go through the normal hand luggage X-ray and metal detectors, many of us were randomly selected to enter a new Tardis-like machine before passing into the USA. No explanation was provided for this machine, but for all intents and purposes it appeared to wait until people were standing in the centre of it and then sniff them. Perhaps they have discovered that terrorists have a distinct body odour—perhaps an odour somewhat chemical in nature? Anyway, all I can say is that I doubt I would have got through if I had used Old Spice aftershave at any time in the last three months. (Perhaps rightly so for the protection of US citizens.)
Chicago: Busy, clean, and with more shops per square metre than even Sydney. Also designed for optimum passenger exercise?catching my connecting flight involved completing a half-marathon from one concourse to another. They also added to the distance by surreptitiously changing my gate number whilst I was making my pedestrian transit, thereby forcing me to walk from one section to another and back again as I tried to figure out where my plane was actually going to leave from, and whether I could really trust those “Departure” monitors.
Cleveland: Sadly, I am unable to report, as I have absolutely no recollection of this airport. This could be because by this time I had not slept for about 28 hours. However, I do recall a sense of joy knowing that it marked the end of my air journey.
The misery of riding for 24 hours in airplanes does make me wonder one thing: why do most passengers queue up to be first on the plane? Now there's one of life's great mysteries.