Planes, Pink Floyd, and Polity

As I write this column I am really feeling the effects of jet lag. I guess I had never experienced this before, but 2 weeks ago my daughter, Emily, and I went to the Czech Republic to lead a Vacation Bible School in Brno, the 2^nd largest city in the Czech. This was my first time out of the country and an amazing experience with some wonderful people. 
 As I sat on the airplane from Amsterdam to Atlanta, I was thinking about the VBS we had led. I was wondering if we did enough, if I said what I should have said, if I should have done or said more? This was an amazing week with the children and parents in the Czech, but I felt like there may have been something more for some reason. So I resigned that seeds had been planted, and perhaps we cultivated others a little bit, and I settled into my seat for a 9-hour flight.

            A man with a unique accent sat down beside me, introducing himself as Luis, from South Africa. Luis was on his first trip to the US, headed to Atlanta and then to Miami to a Roger Waters concert (Roger Wasters from Pink Floyd). He said his wife had bought him the ticket when it went on sale over a year ago, but only bought the one ticket as she was battling leukemia and didn’t expect to be here when the concert came. Luis told me as teared rolled down his face, that she had died a few months ago. He was lost without her, and tried to fall back on the little faith he knew when he was younger but couldn’t. His children had encouraged him to make this trip to Miami, and he had reluctantly come.

            “Maybe will God will actually show up somehow,” Luis said.

            Yeah, you can count on that.

            We talked about life, death, faith, marriage, and Pink Floyd.

            As we talked, Luis asked what book I was reading. Actually, I hadn’t been reading, but I did bring a book with me that I need to read for an August UMC class I am taking this fall. The book was “Polity, Practice, and the Mission of the United Methodist Church, 2006 edition” by Thomas Edward Frank. Dr. Frank is a great writer of all things Methodist, but our Church polity is not exactly a blazing fire of interesting excitement unless you are directly related to it.

            Again, tears welled up in Luis’ eyes as he told me he had grown up Methodist, and was baptized as an infant in a Methodist Church in South Africa.

            “A pastor is sitting beside me at the exact time of my personal faith crisis. Did Delta make this seating arrangement, or did God?” Luis asked.

            OK, no pressure now, I thought.

            Surely God gave me the words to say to Luis, because I can’t even remember everything I said. I listened a lot. I listened to stories of his love for his wife, his marriage, his questions, his concerns.

            And then we talked about hope. Hope that we have in what Jesus said is true. Hope that God is with us through each and every day, and will be with us for eternity. Hope that helps us get out of bed when our best friend, life partner, and soul mate has been buried. Hope in tomorrow. Hope in our faith.

            “I need this hope in my life now,” Luis said, “would you pray with me so that I can recommit my life to Jesus and start fresh when I land in Atlanta?”

            At about 40,000 feet up in air at a speed in excess of 500 mph over the Atlantic ocean a lawyer from South Africa and a pastor from Telford held hands and prayed together.

            Then we both took out pictures of our wives. Luis listened to their favorite music on his phone, hoping that one day he would see her again. I just looked at this image of my favorite person, my partner in life, and thanked God for every experience we had shared together, and asked for His help to focus my love more fully on her and on Him.

            Once again our God has amazed me. As I sat on a plane wondering if I had done enough or done it well enough, God showed up. And He even used a Methodist book on polity and a Roger Waters concert in Miami to do it.