My airline kept the middle seat free. That was most wonderful. This is not about COVID or what we should do, but about sitting on a plane talking, as I often do, masked which I have only done lately. My job requires I fly and my particular brain makes that hard. Once, on the way to Mongolia, the plane hit an air pocket and I was thrown against the ceiling of the plane. I did not like flying already, but this made flying worse.
For some time, I hated to admit this. Hope went with me on trips when she could to help me tolerate the flights that my job required me to make. This fear which was and is certainly irrational, has gradually faded with help. I always have been able to do what had to be done, though that does not mean I like it!
Oddly, whenever I get on a plane, I find myself seated near someone who is talkative. Since I was once asked if I had ever heard of “anyone talking themselves to death,” I cannot complain with any justice! On a plane, unlike most of life, I try to be still and just get to where I need to go, but find that my seat mate views the trip as a chance to dialogue. Like Socrates in Book I of the Republic, I am just trying to get home, but some better soul draws me back to discussion. There is something new.
So it goes.
My old ears find understanding what is being said hard behind the mask. I have lipread more than I realized. I also miss being able to see how they are reacting to the conversation with an open face. The eyes may be sad for many reasons, some deep and historic, but the mouth gives clues to how this particular situation is going. Masks on the plane gave me information of how they were doing in the passage of time, but prevented me knowing the reaction to what was being said now.
Perhaps they are like I am, unsure how I am reacting to their discussion about the world. We are both masked, as we must be, so they only see my eyes, sad for my own grievous faults, and not the encouragement I would like to give them. At one point, when I had the water the airline gave us, I pulled down the mask to show that what they were saying made sense to me. If they wished, they could continue!
Every conversation on the plane was like this. When speaking to the flight attendants, I could not be sure a jest landed or if I was just being a boor, so I was all business, not jesting. This might be better for the workers, but was a bit sad for me. I have learned so much from these well trained workers over the years about where I have been and where I am going.
We were told that the middle seats would be full by December, so we should fly in comfort while we can. Did they mean this? Were they dismayed? Normally I can guess, but they were masked.
No insight is needed to say that for all the good they might do “masks hide.” I just spent two days with hidden people on planes.
Nobody needs to be told that all of us mask a bit in our lives. We hide who we were, are, and where we are heading. This is not all bad. Nobody could stand our story brutally told. We mask what is true, what falls short of being good, and what is ugly. We long for and dread the great and terrible Day when the Lord will unmask us. We will be seen as we are.
God have mercy.
Our fundamental dispositions are easy for the wise to read, despite our masks. The hope for our future, change that is needed, is in the interplay of events with our more changeable selves. We hide that truth behind masks all the time, now the government (for good or bad) requires us to do so. The time must come when all the masks are let down and we see each other with clear faces.
When we do, we see that it is God within us that is the hope of glory.
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