Airports are Weird

I just got home from picking my aunt up at John Wayne Airport in Costa Mesa. Her flight was scheduled to arrive at 10:50pm; I arrived 30 minutes early just in case. I've never picked anyone up at that particular airport before, so I was somewhat bewildered and dazed beyond what might be normal for me. I walked around, checked the flight information, and then made my way to a bench off to the side of the more trafficked parts of the airport. That is to say that I was not hidden from view, merely on the fringes of the main thoroughfares.

I sat down, and instinctively pulled out my phone to thumb through the cheap games that come bundled in with any phone that is not intelligent enough to be considered a 'smartphone'. After failing in Snake3 for the third time, a strange thought came to my mind.

"Why am I so instinctively interested in appearing busy?"

I returned my phone to my pants pocket, said a prayer, and looked up and out. Someone had taken a seat on the same bench as me; She was looking at her Blackberry. A mother and daughter walked by; They smiled at me. Business people moved efficiently and purposefully through the airport, reminding me of the tactical sense of movement that one might observe in highly disciplined soldiers. There's a man with a rose eagerly waiting for someone. Some friends who won't look each other in the eye while they converse, awkwardly looking at the advertisements.

Yeah airports are interesting for people watching. But they also make me feel slightly uncomfortable. It's an odd feeling - maybe that feeling is caught up in the purpose and utility of an airport. Airports are like a point of transition in the lives of people - no one really stays there, no one lives there, it is just a place that people are passing through on their way to somewhere else. It makes me feel tense, uncomfortable, I want to look busy. In fact, it seems that everyone wants to look busy here. And everyone wants to look and move purposefully. Maybe some are. Maybe its a show.

I actually wasn't planning on making this a "spiritual" post, but as I wrote it out, some ideas just started to stand out to me. Life on earth is basically one long transition. For some, it is the low point in a transition to Heaven and eternity with God. For others, it is the high point in a transition to an eternity without God. But here we all are, and I can't help but feel like the realities of an airport can sometimes be borne out in the realities of the lives of everyday people, living their everyday lives, Christian or not. The feelings I feel waiting in an airport are feelings that I feel like I feel regularly on this earth - tense, uncomfortable, wanting to be in a place with permanence. I busy myself with trivialities and attempt to put on fronts and appearances for people so that I won't seem strange.

Look up from your phones. Be aware of where you are. Be thankful that this place is a transition to a better place. There will be no stress, discomfort, awkwardness, and no need to put up a front of any sort in the place we're transitioning to.

Comments

hmcs-e said…
Belately stumbled upon your blog via your book review on Wrestling with An Angel - I like your thoughtfulness, its what a blog should be (but 99.9999% aren't) - great post on Airports
September 7, 2011 at 7:47 AM
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