This is a relatively short account of my trip to North Carolina in February 2026. The “chapters” have been posted separately a few weeks ago; this is the whole banana. During the trip and reflecting on it afterward, I realize how so many relationships have been both precious and priceless for me.
When 50 or so years pass between then and now, friends change and friends finally die. But friends can be friends forever. Whether or not we touch hands or smile and laugh together again, I experienced with these folks the phenomenon of “God-with-skin-on”. And because of these friends and family, God-without-skin-on feels close. Different from before. These days I play, eat, work, listen, speak, think, write, pray, rest, sleep and God is right there with me.
Something like this happened to Thomas Merton in Louisville at 4th and Walnut. Years after he died, the configuration of streets has changed, but the spot is remembered with an historical marker.
Is that cool or what?
Merlie and Vera’s 196 years, February 15, 2026
1. AA1107
February 14, 2026
The LORD God formed man out of the clay of the ground
and blew into his nostrils the breath of life,
and so man became a living being.
In order to get from Austin to Wilmington, North Carolina for our Uncle Merlie’s 100th birthday party, many of his 80 relatives and friends flew on fire-breathing monsters, the jets that fly at 35,000 feet, look quiet and tiny from the ground and are one of the favorite “quiet sounds” for many as we fall asleep. Onboard Margaret has met many fascinating seatmates, because she often flies back and forth from Austin to Champaign, Illinois. Maybe I’ll meet some folks too and have some stories for her.
Riding in Martell’s Lyft SUV at 6:30 am, slipping through TSA without incident or lines, offering up my carry-on luggage to be put away till we get to Wilmington, and waiting for Group 5 to be called to the back of an American Airlines 737, and saying hello. A woman my age going to Cozumel, a resort near Cancun, 1978 miles. Driving 37 hours, or flying 200 minutes. She flew, and she wondering aloud how scuba diving would be for her at age 71.
Between us, woman with a mask, on a recurring two-stop flight from Austin to Knoxville. When her 93-year-old mother has a doctor’s appointment, she gets on the plane and goes to accompany her.
She was quiet but happy to share when I asked. She listened more than she talked. I appreciated sitting beside her. Across the aisle another woman with a mask was highlighting a book in yellow and blue. ‘Acts of God” on top, with a subtitle I thought read “Why read Dostoevsky?” Which caught my attention.
I thought of several reasons to read Dostoevsky’s profoundly spiritual-religious-Russian novels, learning more than one way through the maze of shame, pride and salvation walking beside Raskolnikov or Prince Myshkin. When we were about to land, she took off her mask and asked which terminal we were landing at. “Terminal C,” I said.
I asked about her book. “Why read Dostoevsky?” She looked at me and frowned.
I looked more closely at the title. Oh! “Acts of God … Coming World Disasters.” A little double vision can get in the way of conversation, but it can also stimulate it. “What’s the next coming world disaster?” I asked her, laughing at myself.
She didn’t have to think about it. “It’s already here. MEGACHURCHES!” I thought her eyes hardened a little. She looked angry, and righteous, and ready to preach. And I remembered my seatmate’s purpose for flying to care for her mom. I thought how James in the Bible wrote about single-minded generosity on the one hand, and talking too quickly without listening on the other. Off the plane at 10:30 a.m., we each are alone again.
My cousin Mike, flying from Philadelphia and sharing my room, would get there earlier than me. I called Karen at the Holiday Inn Express front desk. “Oh, he’s already here and in your room.” Perfect. I called Mike to talk a bit, glancing at my phone,watching the gates change for my 1 pm flight to Wilmington, then watching the departure time push further and further into the afternoon, then suddenly seeing the word DELAYED change to CANCELLED.
There were articles on The Points Guy about what to do now. But I never read them. I imagine I’m supposed to take a deep breath or two when I see the C word, so I do. Mike has traveled a lot, and the disappointment in his voice was unmistakable. He began to suggest that I find someone and … but then the screen changed again. We have REBOOKED you on the next flight to Wilmington, which leaves at 7:01 pm. American Airlines flight 1107.
Mike said, “I think I’ll take a nap.” My wait in Dallas just changed from 2 to 9 hours, and I wondered where I too could fall asleep.
Then the devil took him up to a very high mountain,
and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their magnificence,
and he said to him, “”All these I shall give to you,
if you will prostrate yourself and worship me.”
At this, Jesus said to him,
“Get away, Satan!
It is written:
The Lord, your God, shall you worship
and him alone shall you serve.”
Then the devil left him and, behold,
angels came and ministered to him.
2. The Club DFW
February 14, 2026
Let the words of my mouth
And he meditations of my heart
Be acceptable in thy sight,
O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
It was Valentine’s Day, but that was a little hard to remembrer. There were issues at the airport – many flights, not just mine, delayed and then cancelled. I couldn’t feel sorry for myself. Eating a little lunch at the extravagantly named Plaza Premium Lounge, I sat between two guys checking their flights. The three of us probably knew just enough to be dangerous.
Two young sons asked their dad every few minutes about their family’s flight to Salt Lake City. They wanted to ski. On my other side, I met Woody, a retired Delta pilot and his wife. Traveling twenty years on no-charge-employee-standby, they were accustomed to delays. And they were happy to share stories while we ate our soup and sandwiches, about Blue Angels and Vietnam and wanting to get away.
Departure to Wilmington eventually settled in at 11:27 pm, a bit more than 13 hours after I landed. My cousin Nancy, also on her way to Merlie’s party, was held up in Dallas even longer, until the next morning! If we’d known we were “inches” apart, we could have spent time together re-acquainting. As it was, I rode the Sky link train around DFW’s five terminals twice, walked awhile and then just sat. An 82-year-old lady sitting beside me checked her watch. “I’ve walked 8½ miles today,” she told me. She seemed a little restless. After her husband Wally died, she decided to splurge on first class seats for a trip to Auckland, New Zealand. She had arrived in Dallas at 7:30 am and her delays and cancellations had her leaving at midnight.
When the Son of Man comes in his glory
And all the angels with him,
He will sit upon his glorious throne
And all the nations will be assembled before him.
And he will separate them one from another.
By late afternoon I needed to charge my devices, and I settled into a seat at the charging wall. I had been reading Kazantzakis’ memoir Report to Greco on my kindle, but my eyes felt heavy. (I’ve been reading that book off and on for months.) Sleepy, I noticed an Hispanic mom charging phones across from me, keeping track of her three kids while they ran around and played. I guess I fell asleep.
More voices. I opened my eyes and smiled at the woman across from me. “I’ve enjoyed listening to you be patient with your kids.” Two women on either side of me laughed. “She’s not the mom. Those folks left.” I felt warmly accepted in the conversation these former strangers had been having. I don’t have any kids. Yet … I’d like to, though. Just need to find a man … a 50-year old biology teacher returning from a conference in Mexico thought differently. “My mom had 7 kids. She came from a family of 21. (What?) I teach biology. I tell my own children not to have any kids themselves. I don’t want to be a grandma.” She was smiling, and she was serious.
The third lady agreed, sort of. “I’m 51 and kind of like the single thing.” I showed them videos of Miles and Jasper and Finn, growing teeth and losing teeth, showing off their filming skills and laughing, laughing, laughing. They laughed too.
I told them I needed to look for a new neck pillow at a thrift shop in Wilmington. “My best friend lives in Wilmington. We went to a great thrift shop!” The 51-year-old texted her friend. No response.
Finally I packed up my cords and stuff and said goodbye., walked around a couple corners and up an escalator to the mezzanine. I was settling into a big black easy chair for one more nap waiting to get into the other club my credit card qualified me to enter and closed my eyes. Someone poked me.
“I found you! My friend called from Wilmington. The thrift shop is Rosie Revolution! Just thought you’d like to know.” And I felt loved. How did she find me way up here?
After a couple of hours reading and resting in the Club DFW, I listened to a friendly talkative bartender Jeremy, explain to a curious 25-year-old who didn’t drink (until tonight) how to make an espresso martini, an Old Fashioned, a Rob Roy, Long Island Iced Tea, etc … and how to choose drinks with low sugar content. By 10 pm, half an hour before closing, Jeremy had emptied a large jar of maraschino cherries. Nothing left but juice. High sugar content! Rather than pouring it down the drain, though, he poured it into a 20-ounce glass.
Jeremy looked at his helper – quiet guy, young, cleaning up. “I’ll give you ten dollars cash if you drink this cherry juice down without stopping.” Everyone was laughing. “Sure. Absolutely. $10? Really?” And then he drank it, all of it, and several of us applauded, and Jeremy forked over the 10 bucks.
A week later on my return flight, I stopped in again at The Club DFW and asked the young guy, while he was checking me in, how he liked the cherry juice. He looked up, surprised, then recognized me.
“You were there! You know, I slept great. The sugar didn’t bother me at all.” He smiled and found me a place to sit.
I was hungry and you gave me food,
I was thirsty and you gave me drink,
a stranger and you welcomed me.
3. Basilica of Saint Mary … Pour Room … Heaven
February 15, 2026
Just as from the heavens
the rain and snow come down
And do not return there
till they have watered the earth,
making it fertile and fruitful,
Giving seed to the one who sows
and bread to the one who eats,
So shall my word be
that goes forth from my mouth;
It shall not return to me void,
but shall do my will,
achieving the end for which I sent it.
For this trip to Uncle Merlie’s 100th birthday party in Wilmington, North Carolina I rented a Camry from Turo, a company that shares cars like Airbnb shares homes. I needed to pick up the car from an airport parking lot before 4 pm, but instead I didn’t arrive till twelve hours later.
Sometime long before 4 am, my new helper Esa with Turo sent me a video of himself walking to the car, to help me find my way in the dark. He gave me his personal phone number in case I needed it. That helped a lot, and the key/parking ticket were in the unlocked glovebox, and after taking a bunch of pictures of the car’s current condition, I left the airport. Perhaps these things happen all the time, but it was a first for me, and I appreciated being taken care of. The next morning Esa texted me. “Hey, how’d everything go?”
“It went great,” I texted back.
So a couple of hours before dawn, I opened the hotel room door and whispered, “Mike, don’t wake up.”
“Too late,” he whispered. We talked for an hour and then at last I was asleep in a bed. Only four hours, but I felt pretty good. We ate breakfast, talked and talked, and decided on a church where we could attend Mass.
We got to church OK, to the Basilica of Saint Mary, but we had mixed up the times and locations, so the service was half over and the narthex full of latecomers like us. We joined them. Most of them spoke Spanish or Vietnamese. We stood with them and watched the service through windows in the doors. Once again, it seemed easy for me to feel the friendship and family-ness of the place and people. Maybe I felt like a little boy, still innocent, fears and suspicions suspended.
Nothing about the hard concrete floor where everyone knelt all together at just the right time, or the Catholic calendars available on the table, or the fairly constant flow of folks to the bathroom would make me think of heaven, but being around the people, lives unseen, did. We didn’t ask anything from each other, and we all needed everything from God.
Glorify the LORD with me,
let us together extol his name.
I sought the LORD, and he answered me
and delivered me from all my fears.
We were late to everything. It didn’t matter. After mass ended we drove, parked and at last walked into the Pour Taproom, which was hopping with our party. My sister Mary Kay found us at the door … and gave me the first of countless big hugs.
Seeing cousins for the first time in 50 years, I suppose some of the smiles and hugs and welcomes were a little strained, but mostly I think Mike and I both felt warm and welcomed. A photographer corralled us for pictures in front of a white backdrop. Stories, memories and details about kids and jobs and old friends sparked these simultaneously new-old relationships. Although my mind overflowed with stimuli and response, although my body needed another eight hours of sleep just to begin to recover, the point was that our uncle and aunt, Merlie and Vera, brother and sister since 1930, were there. And their presence changed everything.
They are both in pretty good health. Along with Roland (my dad) and Eugenia (Mike’s mom), both of whom are no longer with us, farm life in central Illinois during the depression and world wars embedded patience and a work ethic in them that has always been with them and was there now. Of course they were glad to see us, and our cousins too, and the 80 or so other friends and family of the birthday boy (100 on Feb 12) and girl (96 on Feb 15, the day of the party).
Merlie rented two wheelchairs for he and his sister, since neither owns one. King and queen they were on their black thrones, and we honored them. But although we celebrated and gave them tribute, I am sure many of us felt more like they were taking care of us. Don’t children feel safe when their parents are around? Could we let our everyday self-protections and ambitions fall away because they were there? Of course. Maybe we didn’t exactly know why, but we could just be at peace, safe in the arms …
It was easy to talk with both of them. They asked lots of questions … and answered ours. They were the opposite of full of themselves.
One thing that made us all “special” was the hat everyone wore which announced we were members of “Merlie’s 100 Club.” For us the Pour Room became a wide, long playground, and we ran right up to the edges and played all day, jumping and laughing and praising God. Because we were safe.
I tallied up as best I could the cumulative age of just the first two generations of our family and relatives, still around after all these years, those of us who were able to get to the party in person. That number came out to well over a thousand. Does that make us a millennium family?
Of course it does. I’m so grateful to be part of it.
Jesus told his disciples,
Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
This is how you are to pray:
Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name,
thy Kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our trespasses
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
4. Choco
February 16-17, 2026
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from your presence,
and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore unto me the joy of your salvation.
In the Camry I drove Mike to the Wilmington airport in plenty of time to catch his plane. The first day of flight delays did not extend into the following week. On the way to our car he carried a fairly flimsy paper plate full of biscuits and gravy out of our hotel for me, balancing it well. I dropped him off and stopped beside the road outside the airport. I ate. Coffee, biscuits, sausage gravy, cheese omelet, two small cinnamon buns. Orange juice. Happiness runs …
While I ate I called Uncle Merlie, who invited me to visit him again, at his home this time. From the street to his front door there are no steps. Flat, easy to walk for him and all of us, and I thought gratefully of our apartment in Austin, where no stepping up or down interrupt our walk from parking lot to living room.
Merlie’s daughters and their families filled his house on this Monday after. We watched 80 pictures from sixty years ago, which Mike and his stepdad Bob had put together before coming from Philadelphia and Seattle for the party. More laughter, recognition, memories … Uncle Merlie told me about his farming life, and how after a few years he and Gloria decided to do something different. I looked at the sale bill announcing his auction of livestock and machinery, framed on the wall of his garage … January 2, 1960 … “lunch served by Cub Scouts from Chester-East Lincoln Grade School.”
Hmmm. I went to that school. Mom was our scout leader. I would have been 10 years old, fifth grade, my last year as a Cub Scout. Taking plates of biscuits and gravy to a bunch of frozen farmers on the second day of the new year?
Wait a minute. What year is this again? I welcomed this flowing back and forth from past to present, but also I felt a little dizzy with a kind-of double-vision, seeing each person I knew as a child with one eye on 1960 and one right here, right now. If I close one eye I see Merlie, Gloria, or Susan, Sandra, and Sherril captured in the pictures and rekindling my memories. When I close the other, there they are smiling and offering me lunch. Plenty of food left over from the party. A giant card celebrating 100 years takes up most of the coffee table.
Eventually I said my goodbyes. Looking forward to a sunshine-filled drive north along the coast to a tiny town not far from the Pamlico River and a couple of nights with my friends Ron and Connie. More memories, not so far back, of Kogudus prison retreats and music everywhere. Ron learned to play guitar so when he led music, he and the inmates could find a key to sing together. He put together a great songbook for us.
The three of us kept thinking and talking about Connie’s dad Jack, who brought all of us together year after year to make these retreats at Danville Correctional Center. Ron rode with me to a men’s retreat at Lake Lulu in Wisconsin, hosted by my friend Don. We visited their church in Mahomet now and then and shared great meals together while we sat around the kitchen island watching the chef. Remembering all of that, and more, enriched by lots of prayer.
I couldn’t pronounce their town’s name at first. Chocowinity means “fish from many waters,” a Tuscarora Nation word. I say it out loud a few times, and it begins to be beautiful. Most of the folks who live there now just call it Choco, but the whole name would make the great first line of a haiku:
Chocowinity
Walk along its boardwalk
Watch the birds watch you
We sit in front of a roaring fire, order and pick up pizza, talk about our love for Jesus, and settle into sleep.
The next day I wake up early. Connie and Ron have been up awhile. Ron built their home in a forest of loblolly pines, and morning fog envelops the trees. A woodpecker works hard outside. I wonder if he’s in a hurry. We are not.
In between the quiet times we talk and talk, and pray, and rest, and Ron drives us around to see the homes where their two daughters and families live, just blocks away.
When they decided on North Carolina as their retirement home, their two daughters said, “Why don’t we all go down there together?” And they did. For more than twelve years, Ron and Connie have lived close, watching their grandkids grow. In welding class their grandson created a painfully beautiful vision of Jesus carrying his cross. Happiness runs in a circular motion …
Even now, says the LORD,
return to me with your whole heart
for I am gracious and merciful.
Slowing down like this inside my body and my mind feels like rubbing a beautiful polished stone between my palms until it glows and I glow too. I am quieting. God invites me to reacquaint myself with the BE in Psalm 46:10.
Be still and know that I am God.
Be still and know that I am.
Be still and know.
Be still.
BE
5. Triangle
February 18-19, 2026
I will give thanks to you, O LORD, with all my heart,
for you have heard the words of my mouth;
in the presence of the angels I will sing your praise.
I will worship at your holy temple
and give thanks to your name.
The LORD will complete what he has done for me;
your kindness, O LORD, endures forever.
Do not forsake the work of your hands.
Bob’s a preacher, pastor and musician at Triangle Family Church in Durham. He’s written three books, one titled Sermons of a Reluctant Preacher. I didn’t get to be with him at Triangle Family Church for a service, but when I watch on YouTube, there I see my friend, Bobby Huneycutt the preacher, not seeming reluctant at all. He loves his music, and his Tarheels, and his church family, and more than anything, he loves Ryoko and the children they have raised over the years. We met 50 years ago, when he was Bobby from Morehead City and I was Davy from a dairy farm in Lincoln, Illinois.
Bob drove his truck to California hoping to surf and play blues guitar, and he lived in that truck for awhile. I hitchhiked to San Francisco to check out classes in a deep massage method known as the Alexander Technique. Unexpectedly, our ragamuffin lives were upended by Rev. Moon’s Creative Community Project, which gave us both opportunity to fight through our habits and regrets back toward God. As you might expect, this was not easy for either of us.
Or for anyone. But the local leaders put together music, exercise, shared meals, fellowship and fasting, along with fascinating lectures that wove threads of theology, philosophy, religion, and history into a blanket that in time we both threw over our shoulders. For Bob, that blanket has kept him warm ever since. For both of us, it protected us as we left old lifestyles that really were pretty selfish. For me it held me together while I turned back toward Jesus. Under that blanket, a safe tent in the dark night, we both keep learning to wait for God, and know that He’s right here.
The time we spent together in California, when we both more often felt like reborn babies than grown up men, allowed God to build a foundation for Bob and me, which now 50 years later allows us to start right up again in Durham. We both wondered if that would happen. We both wanted it to happen. And we both think it did. The differences in our culture and oikos fall away. That song? … “Friends are friends forever, when the Lord’s the Lord of them.” We can stake our claim on that truth.
Bob’s ten years of hard work on Church mobile fundraising teams (MFT) led into ten years of learning the art of making sushi, in Nashville and then in Durham. This quiet blues singer shares those stories in his books Blue Eternal Sky and Leaving Shadowland. Both of us began college studying journalism. And today both of us write, trying along the way both to disclose our weaknesses and celebrate our strengths, doing what we can to BE. Looking up toward God.
Bob kind-of retired a few years ago, although not from pastoring Triangle Family Church. His bookshelf is full of studies and texts of Rev. Moon’s Divine Principle and the Bible. Ryoko and their daughter continue working at Akai Hana, the Durham sushi restaurant they own. “This has always been a family before it is a business,” Bob said about Akai Hana.
The restaurant’s Japanese name means “red flower.” A painting commissioned to celebrate the restaurant watches over us while we eat the beautiful, colorful sushi Bob and Ryoko’s friends have made for us. The restaurant’s sushi chef painted two of the artworks on the walls. He and Bob spend a few hours each week playing with two other guys who love the blues.
Back at home, deep in their not-quite-private woods not far from the Duke campus, we played Marvel Splendor, a card game Bob and Ryoko play every night. Bob shepherded me through my first try at the game, which generally lasts 30 minutes or so. Bob helped me count my points (18 points wins the game), and then quietly counted Ryoko’s. “You’ve got 19. You are the winner, my dear.”
“Really?” Ryoko jumped up and laughed from way deep down inside. And all of us felt happy.
Ask and it will be given to you;
seek and you will find;
knock and the door will be opened to you.
For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds;
and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
6. North
February 19, 2026
Make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit.
Driving south from Durham after breakfast with my friend Bob, I have time for a last visit with Uncle Merlie. I knocked and opened the door; North greeted me, unsure how to respond to a stranger. Merlie’s oldest daughter Susan named her dog North (perhaps short for True North?), and he spends quite a bit of time with Uncle Merlie while Susan is out and about. A beautiful dog that lives in a beautiful family.
I didn’t have long before I needed to get to the airport. But seeing my uncle three times that eventful week seemed like a more complete experience. A trinity of visits, so to speak, with increasingly intimate times together. Today was just Merlie, Dave and North. I asked my 100 year old uncle about his experience this week … after a year of anticipation and planning comes a weekend of parties, trivia and rented wheelchairs, then a day of family sharing including a whole set of 80 pictures they hadn’t screened at the party … and now nearing the end of the week, just North and me. And soon, just North.
He felt fine, filled … maybe a little alone after being with all the people. “Think you’ll be traveling to see any of them again soon?” He looked up at me and smiled. Not so much, he said. His home was quiet, and I think his spirit was quiet too. His living room felt full of God to me.
I often wondered, spending those few hours with him, about his smile. His intelligence and unwillingness to just “settle” shows through. He trusts his friends, he loves his family. Often during the week he has a companion (whose birthday gift was a $100 gift card to McDonald’s) to sit with and drink coffee, have a meal.
Uncle Merlie’s quiet smile accompanies his eyes, which invite and encourage me. I read somewhere recently that you can’t fake a smile with your eyes, but you can do nearly anything you want with your lips. I look into Uncle Merlie’s eyes and wait. He’s in no hurry.
Many of the photos from the 60’s show him working with his family or just “being” with them. After a few years in the navy, he met Gloria and they quickly fell in love. Reading Aunt Gloria’s childhood memories, I realize how much Uncle Merlie learned from her about family and commitment. “Devotion” might be a better word.
Her parents, Michael and Hannah John, were born in Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq) as the 20th century began. They emigrated to the US through Ellis Island, learned that their parents had chosen them for each other as mates, and were married. They were proud to learn English and become citizens.
The John family settled in Rhode Island with their growing family, eventually five daughters and a son. Until Gloria was 18, when their family bought a car, they walked everywhere. On Sundays their family walked the two miles to their grandpa’s house, and during the week he often walked to visit them.
In the summer the kids were sent out to gather grape leaves in a woods five miles away. Their mother brought them up eating Mediterranean food: “yogurt, stuffed grape leaves, kibba, hummus, tabouli, majudala, stuffed squash, shish kabob, shamborrack, Syrian bread, matmool, baklava, sleetair, kabesa, and so many more delicious dishes.”
Merlie and Gloria were married 56 years. Despite never having smoked, she died of unexpected lung cancer in 2008. Now her absence at all these gatherings in 2026 was palpable, almost like you could reach out and touch her. And … I am sure though we couldn’t see her, she could see us.
I trust in the LORD;
my soul trusts in his word.
My soul waits for the LORD
more than sentinels wait for the dawn.
7. Esa and Yodolkis
February 19, 2026
Behold, now is a very acceptable time.
Behold, now is the day of salvation.
On the trip home, a couple of heroes, at least for me. I called Esa to ask him for details about returning my Turo rental at the Wilmington airport. I told him where I was driving at the moment.
“Oh, that’s around the corner from our office.” Esa gave me the address. “Drive over here and I’ll drive you back to the airport. That saves time for us both.” So I did.
It was good to meet the man behind the texts: “No worries … Stuff happens … Here’s my personal number if you need it.” My very very late 3 am arrival didn’t faze him. And now he was doing the driving when I had spent awhile with Uncle Merlie and was running out of time. I organized my stuff in the car as he walked over and got into the driver’s seat. Thank you!
Unlike the outgoing flights, these flights home stayed on time. On the way to Dallas I sat next to an athlete-size guy with 2 Corinthians 3:17 stenciled on his t-shirt.
Now the Lord is the Spirit,
And where the Spirit of the Lord is,
There is freedom.
He stayed busy, though, on his phone. Neither of us said a word. I didn’t feel disappointed; I have been talking so much, my mind filled with so many overlapping words for nearly a week. It was time to rest.
After an hour so in Dallas, resting in my slowly-becoming-familiar Club DFW, I waited … what, five minutes? The plane to Austin was on time. This time my seatmates were friendly, gregarious, full of questions … a young Montana high school history teacher and his wife, curious about my suggestions about how to spend their time in Austin. I told them about our three years of Friday Adventures with our grandsons, showed them pictures of Miles and Jasper. When we landed they wanted to help me get to the baggage pick-up, but I said I’d be fine.
I wasn’t exactly fine. The 1500 feet I walked took me much longer than Google’s idea of five to seven minutes. I just don’t walk very fast these days. My bag was one of just a few left on the conveyor belt. I had not used Lyft before to get home from the airport and gradually figured out where I needed to be … another long walk, this one unexpected, to the back of the second floor of the parking garage. My driver texted me, as the Lyft-allocated waiting time ran out, “Don’t worry, I not leave you!”
I texted him back. Thank you!
Then a little later, Where are you?
Then, Help!
Finally I took a selfie and sent it to him. A few minutes later he ran up to me, smiling. Pulling my luggage to his car, we got in, and soon he made it clear he spoke no English. No problem.
We listened to Hispanic music and watched his Corolla car-screen scroll through pictures. No Google map. No Waze. No Apple map. No English, no map, no problem. I pointed at a street sign or two, and we made it to Evolve Apartments, to our front door. I appreciated his smile.
And I guess I also appreciated his silence. Enough words already for this very full week.
After the airport delays a week earlier … then easily retrieving my rental car at 4 am rather than 4 pm the day before … after pre-Lent mass with Mike and the generous and joyful reunions with generations of the Sandel family … after warm, welcoming visits with my friends Ron and Connie, then sushi, music, games and prayers with Bob and Ryoko … more plane rides, movies on the plane, one gin and tonic in the Club, feeling lost at midnight in the parking garage but rescued by my new Hispanic Lyft driver who promised, “I not leave you, do not worry!” … now after midnight, I unlocked our front door and walked right in.
This all felt like a miracle then, and it still does now. I sat for a bit on our remarkable $30, 25-year-old Lazy Boy loveseat my friend Shannon and I brought from the Salvation Army five years ago, while Margaret’s repaired heart recovered in the hospital. Eventually I unpacked my bag. Smiled to myself. Home. Happiness runs.
The next day Margaret insisted I write down what I remembered – so many folks, friends new and old mostly smiling … so much I saw, heard, felt. Like one “skin” on top of another, this rich remembrance felt substantial now but soon it would fade, gradually forgotten and replaced by other “skins.”
And of course that is already coming to pass …
You are children of your heavenly Father,
who makes his sun rise on the bad and the good,
and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.
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