Sitting in 16E

I walked down the plane aisle, doing the dance of eyeing the progression of seat numbers, narrowing myself and my dangling possessions so I didn’t smack every elbow I passed, and remaining self-aware enough to not blindly step on the heels of the person in front of me. The line was pressing backwards, tightening in on our personal space. A tall dark-haired teenager had pulled the no-no move of putting her carry-on in the overhead bin several rows behind her seat and was now trying to inch her way back against the tide to reach her seat.

I sat down in seat 16E. The row was empty. I hoped I would get lucky and have it to myself. I ruffled through my yellow bag and retrieved a crossword puzzle, a pencil, and my headphones and prepared to settle in for a leisurely hour of Radio Lab and puzzling. It was an activity I rarely made time for.

A tall older man stopped at the end of the row and smiled. He towered over me, and I couldn’t help but compare his height to Scott’s. Same build in a form decades older. My neighbor had arrived. He gestured to the window, and I stood up to let him pass. We both chuckled when he sat down and his knees came into full contact with the seat in front of him. 

“It’s what I get for not paying to pick my seat,” he laughed. “I usually go for an aisle seat so I can sprawl out a bit more.”

We chatted about his experience flying with the bare-fare airline I was trying for the first time, then moved on to what was taking us to Baltimore. He told me about the business he owned with his son and his twelve-hour visit for business dealings. I told him about my sister-in-law’s bridal shower. We talked of his children and grandchildren, his wife’s recent retirement, and his career. 

He was quick to smile, his face creasing in familiar lines, and he had the habit of removing his glasses when he gave an explanation, gently gesturing with them as he spoke. 

Somewhere around 30,000 feet, I mentioned my studies in spiritual formation and my time in seminary. 

“Spiritual formation—” he said, his inflection telling me he recognized the term but wasn’t sure what to say. He paused. “My sister is a nun,” he offered. “She has an interesting story—you could write about her.” He referred back to our previous discussion of my writing endeavors. 

He proceeded to tell me about his sister’s work and the story of how she quit a career as a psychology professor at Columbia to begin a religious order in Manhattan. “I was a bit frustrated when she told us what she was going to do. It’s a lot easier to tell people your sister is a Columbia professor than to tell them she’s a nun.” He laughed. 

Another long pause. He was thinking.

“Spiritual formation,” he repeated. “I read a spiritual book recently.”

“Oh really? What was it called?”

“I don’t remember,” he admitted, smiling. 

In that moment I began to sense what was happening. His comments hadn’t been as much about connecting in conversation through some sort of common interest as they had been the need to prove something. He heard I went to seminary, and he felt the need to demonstrate and justify his own spirituality. He mentioned a book whose title, author, and content he couldn’t remember—why? To prove he was “spiritual”? So I wouldn’t ask questions? So I wouldn’t judge? 

What should I have said to my plane buddy Jim? What should I have done to put him at ease, to make him see I didn’t think less of him? Should I have changed the subject? Offered up stories about the books I’m reading now? Should I have pointedly told him the Gospel (note: this would probably not solve the problem of putting him at ease)?

I wrestle with these situations. I struggle over the best approach in these instances of conversations in a vacuum. You’re locked in place for an hour beside a human you’ll most likely never meet again. What do you do?

Ministering in Pain: Resurrection Hope

This post is part of an ongoing series on ministering to people in pain. Click here to see all the posts in this series.

I can sense the irony as I type this post. I’ve just talked about the value in an Easter season of celebration, joy, and delight, and now here I am talking about pain again.

I think of a couple we know who spent Easter Sunday in a hospital room. Their young daughter was diagnosed with cancer last week. It was something unexpected and unforeseen, and they were immediately catapulted into the land of doctor consultations and treatments. They face the challenge of explaining the effects of chemotherapy to a girl who only weeks before lost her first tooth. They face the heartache of watching their child sick, their child in pain, their child struggling to come to grips with something her young mind can’t even reason through yet. This was their Easter reality. This is the world we live in.

It is precisely these situations of heartbreak that make the hope of the resurrection most profound. It is here that the joy of the resurrection proves to be an anchor secure enough to keep us tethered in life’s storms. 

I am convinced that without the resurrection, we have no real hope to offer each other in suffering. This is why I have no qualms over back-to-back posts about resurrection life and comforting each other in pain. In the resurrection, we find hope beyond the suffering of this life. We find a picture of how God redeems—and uses—the worst of suffering. In the resurrection, we see Christ the reigning, sovereign King, not the bleeding victim. 

We cannot escape pain in this world. To ignore it would be naive or disingenuous, putting our fingers in our ears so we can’t hear each other screaming. We look around and see broken relationships, broken bodies, broken spirits, broken dreams. For many of us, our time in this world is marked more by the Cross—the suffering, the pain, the darkness, the silence. But the resurrection tells us these are not the end. The resurrection gives us a reason to rejoice, even when our hearts are still breaking. 

* * * 

We’ve heard the church called a hospital. It’s a “hospital for sinners," a community of people who will spend their lifetime healing and rehabilitating. I believe it should also be a place with doors wide open to those in pain. The suffering should be able to hobble into the community of Christians and find comfort and grace in their time of need. We should be attuned to pain because our Savior himself suffered. We are equipped to offer hope and encouragement because we have seen rehearsed from the beginning of time how our God takes pain and makes it into something glorious. 

But sadly, this isn’t always the case. You don’t have to look far to hear their stories—those who went to the church for help and left more wounded than when they arrived. Many, myself included, have been hurt instead of comforted by fellow Christians in seasons of pain. Sometimes it feels as though the church gets the majority of its cues from Job’s friends. 

I’ve been guilty of this as well. It’s our natural inclination to be uncomfortable with pain. We see pain and say “It could be worse.” We see doubts and offer answers. Or we just turn and walk away. I find being a good comforter requires a great measure of self-control and bravery. It means adopting the posture of listening and silence, instead of an endless supply of “right” answers. It means bearing witness to anger and tears, instead of telling (explicitly or implicitly) someone what they should feel. It means opening my heart wide to empathy, holding myself open to truly see someone’s pain, instead of squirming in my seat, instead of dismissing their heartache, instead of offering a quick fix. 

It’s our natural inclination to be uncomfortable with pain, but I’m convinced it’s a skill that can be developed. That is why I’m going to spend the next few weeks helping us all reflect on what it looks like to minister to each other in times of suffering. Keep an eye out for these resource posts on Wednesdays.

Next week—a primer in what not to do.

What If Easter Was More Than One Day?

Happy Easter!

I awoke groggy on Easter morning. We’d been up late the night before—heralding the resurrection at an Easter vigil into the wee hours of the morning. We rolled out of bed, started the coffee injection, and headed off to celebration number two, with Scott’s banjo in tow. It was a lovely day—good people, good food, the sun shining warm on my skin. It was a day alive—wonderfully appropriate for the day we set aside to remember and rejoice in Christ’s restored life from the grave.

Lent has finally come to a close, and now we find ourselves in the Easter season. In traditions that observe the church calendar, Easter isn’t one day. It’s a seven week long season of celebration.

The church calendar can be an aid to build in the rhythms of seasons into our spiritual lives. It makes me think of that oft-quoted passage in Ecclesiastes: “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.” Lent is the season of mourning; Easter is the season of celebration. During Lent, we focus on the suffering and death of Christ. During Easter, we focus on his victorious life and resurrection.

Many of us observed Lent in some fashion this year. We abstained from something, added a spiritual practice, did a special Bible study, or incorporated some means of meditating on Christ’s suffering. It can be helpful to dedicate a season to reflection, repentance, and self-denial. Some of us have experienced that first hand over the last several weeks.

But how often do we dwell with the same intensity on Easter? I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t. It’s Lent, Lent, Lent, Easter Sunday! Then back to normal. I’m realizing that this is unbalanced. It is healthy and necessary to focus on Christ’s sufferings. But it is unhealthy to not relish in his victory with the same level of dedication. Lent doesn’t get the last word. Death doesn’t get the last word. Resurrection does.

So, I’d like to encourage us to actively meditate on the resurrection life of Christ over the next few weeks. We’ve taken time to focus on the somber aspects of our faith. Now we can take time to focus on the joyous and celebratory.

What would this look like?

Lent is a season for fasting and self-denial. Easter is a season of feasting. If you gave up something for Lent, consider adding something positive to your life. In the classic example, if you gave up chocolate for Lent, you could eat a piece of chocolate each day to remind yourself of the goodness of our life in Christ. Be creative in finding a practice or symbol that will remind you of the joy of your life in Christ now and of the hope of the life to come with Him in glory. Delight in His life and His victory, friends. He is risen.