Lent at the Airport

or, what I learned after a 4-hour power outage

Hey! If you’ve been reading “Story Scraps” the last few weeks, you know I’ve been reflecting on my vocation as a writer. It’s been a lot of fun and hopefully useful to you, my reader. But I decided to give that up for Lent. For the next few weeks, I’ll pull on some Lenten threads here instead and then get back to all things writing and vocation come Easter.

Photo by Nopparuj Lamaikul on Unsplash

If you follow local Baltimore news—or just love to get the latest scoop on airports and whether or not they’re fully operational—you might know that the entirety of the Baltimore Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport lost power on Monday morning for about four hours. It was like someone tripped over a cord and pulled the plug on an entire airport. But did you try turning it off and on again? How about pulling the cartridge out and blowing on it? No? Still nothing?

I walked in—I’d come to learn—about twenty minutes into this minor disaster. Dumb old me was standing in front of the automatic doors for an embarrassingly long time in hindsight, grumbling to myself about them not “automatically opening” and all before giving up and pulling the door open with my hand like a common person. I sped past one slow moving patron after another on my way to TSA pre check, wondering why everyone moved so slowly and also why none of the lights were on—in that order.

And the line! My goodness. What were they, giving away free airplanes? This is insane!

Anyway. Apparently I’m not super quick on picking up on an entire airport having no power.

And you can imagine the scene! Everyone grumbling to themselves, sharing their opinions at a steadily increasing volume. People pushing to ensure their place in line is secure, turning a suspicious eye at any newcomer who might want to cut that line, get a better spot. Airport staff needling their way through the crowds, throwing up their hands in disgust—“Not my problem!”—and ignoring requests for information. Flights and connections missed left, right and sideways, and corresponding passengers shouting and yelling and wondering just how they’ll get to that wedding or funeral or vacation. And then when the power comes back on—oh! The crush of people; the mad dash to get through security; the chaos!

Now here’s the real shocker: None of that happened. Despite the quite real and understandable chaos that is necessarily baked into the four-hour shuttering of an international airport, the folks that I saw were unbelievably pleasant, patient and kind. Sure, people were frustrated—but they helped each other think through and strategize new flight plans. Airport staff—taxed to the limit—wandered through the crowds handing out water bottles, stopping to talk and commiserate, sharing information as they had it. The lines were long, yes, but we held one another’s place for bathroom breaks. We shared stories of past airport woes and laughed at the absurdity of our current situation—all, importantly, with a positive spin.

One elderly man needed help getting up the stairs; he normally relied on a wheelchair, but the elevators were out. No less than ten people helped: we carried the chair, helped him get his stuff situated, found him water and medical support when he found himself to be a bit winded.

And then, when the power clicked back on, the lines reformed. We made room for one another. There was no chaos or anger—I mean, no more than normal; we were still in an airport, after all.

Quite amazing, I think. A simple thing, perhaps, but you’ve been at an airport. You know how it is. You can appreciate all that a four-hour delay—four hours of people not getting on or off planes, four hours of lines building up without any movement, four hours of luggage not getting where it needs to be—entails.

People were decent. Even today, even in a time of division and anger and polarization, people can be decent during a four-hour airport delay.

A sign of hope, I think. Amidst suffering and chaos: hope. People can still see in one another a bit of shared humanity. People can turn to laughter instead of anger, to sharing instead of hoarding, to community instead of isolation.

Lent has begun—our journey through the desert to the cross. It can feel lonely, hard, all-encompassing. It can feel like a time that for some inane reason celebrates suffering and hardship, that forces us to bear burdens above and beyond what we’re all already carrying.

Look at the news—aren’t we already muddling through Lent? Do we need more suffering, sadness and hardship?

I think of that airport. I think of all of us just standing there—for hours. We’re all missing something, sacrificing something, forced into a situation that we have no control over and yet must somehow manage. Most significantly, we had to manage ourselves. And it’s not like at the end of it all, we got cake and ice cream and a sack of gold doubloons—I mean, I was going on a work trip.

Graduating from that four-hour line (and then the four additional hours, thanks to the very understandable flight delay) simply meant I could begin my work.

Lent offers us an opportunity to choose our disposition. Will we grumble and whine about the inevitable hardships and delays and sufferings we face as we journey through this life, as we journey to the cross? Or, will we instead turn to the person next to us and smile, share a laugh and knowing nod? Will we lean into community, draw nearer to the people around us rather than throw up barriers and walls and divisive rhetoric?

Listen: If hundreds of strangers standing around in an increasingly warm airport can do it, I think anyone can. So let’s lean in. Let’s press into one another this Lent. There are burdens and they are heavy and they are real.

But we’re up to it. And so is the strength of community. Let’s get going.

And another thing:

• We launched a special, limited podcast series called “The Work of Lent” over at the Jesuit Media Lab. It’s all about balancing the professional and spiritual life during these forty days—and the first episode features the indominable

  John D.
  of
  Roll Credits with John Dougherty
  . Click here to give it a listen.

• Did I mention I have some books coming out that you might want to preorder?