Not A Flight of Fancy

A short time ago, I travelled from Italy to Holland to give a couple of conferences regarding Saint Thomas Aquinas, Saint John Paul II, and the Theology of the Body.  The first leg of the trip, a flight from Rome to Belgium, was a real hoot.

As generally happens when invited to events by religious sisters (and particularly by contemplatives), the plane tickets were for the cheapest possible flight on a budget airline. This meant, of course, leaving at a somewhat strange time from a less important and less accessible airport, but that is what you expect from a budget airline.

Once at the airport, as everyone taking different flights packed into a room with seats for maybe half of the crowd, the first official reminder that the journey was low cost officially came.  My Ryanair flight was announced as a code share with MaltaAir, another budget airline jointly owned by Ryanair and the Government of Malta.

Safety First

Nevertheless, once aboard the plane itself, my curiosity was piqued by the introduction to the safety demonstration.  We were told that we needed to pay attention, even if we had flown before, since “this aircraft might have features different from any other flight you have taken.”

I wondered if, perhaps, a budget airline uses a special budget plane, one where we all need to help hand crank the engine or flap our arms in unison! Looking around, however, I thought it was highly unlikely the plane was that unique. After all, the plane had two wings, with one engine on each, seats, flight attendants, and the like. Indeed, it had all the trappings of every other flight on any other plane I had ever flown on.

The seat back safety instruction card, was no different either.  To render it understandable in all languages, it was devoid of any language at all. The wordless hieroglyphics would have made no sense at all had this flight been utterly unique. For what purpose would masks descend from the ceiling for? To serve complementary oxygen? To avoid the bad smells of the passenger next to you?

The Seats

Possibly the most thought-provoking comment was that if your cell phone fell into the “seat structure,” you should not attempt to remove it yourself.  Instead, you were to call the flight attendant to assist you in your recovery efforts. I can only assume that there are many reasons why the airlines would prefer that the attendant aid in such a precarious search and rescue mission.  But I was baffled by the phrase “seat structure.”

On a low-cost airline, the seat is essentially the plastic equivalent of plywood, assembled at just the right angle to fool you into thinking that you can fall asleep while simultaneously preventing you from doing so.  And it’s often coated with some fabric-like covering, assuredly derived from plastic.  All in all, it would provide only minimal comfort to a caveman used to sleeping on a cold rock floor in some damp rock crevice. Exactly where, I thought, would my cell phone fall into the “seat structure”? There is no structure to speak of, just me sitting on plastic-covered plastic.

The Journey

As the safety demonstration finished, and as we prepared to take off, a child in one of the back rows began crying. At that, one of the nearby passengers shook her head in frustration, as if somehow this screaming infant were the one element that had already ruined her trip. The thought occurred to me: what sort of journey did she anticipate? She should probably have known when she clicked “purchase” on the airline website what sort of journey to expect: a cheap one, with no frills, and little comfort. But at least she would make it to her final destination.

In my experience, this is a common assumption with travel. Many people think that travel should be flawless, perfect, and without difficulties. And they are usually horribly disappointed when things do not go according to their plans. Yet, when we really think about it, what did we expect?

For instance, I once waited for a flight delayed because a seat had broken. Someone angrily asked, “How could they possibly break a seat?!” My thought was entirely the opposite. After all, the seats are meant to come apart to serve as flotation devices, right? I am surprised they don’t break more often!

Of course, it’s only natural that we want our travel experience to go smoothly, to avoid delays, lost baggage, and other mishaps. However, provided we make it safely to our final destination, even an unpleasant trip with delays, turbulence, and lost baggage is a successful one.

Our Journey Through Life

The same could be said of our journey through life here on earth. Life on earth isn’t easy: it has its problems, challenges, distractions, and frustrations. Some, perhaps all, of us can relate to Job’s words amid his sufferings. He laments that (7:1-5):

Is not life on earth a drudgery, its days like those of a hireling? Like a slave who longs for the shade, a hireling who waits for wages, so I have been assigned months of futility, and troubled nights have been counted off for me. When I lie down I say, “When shall I arise?” then the night drags on; I am filled with restlessness until the dawn. My flesh is clothed with worms and scabs; my skin cracks and festers.

It sounds like Job is trying to sleep in my plane seat. His neighbor will probably call the flight attendant and ask to use the oxygen mask. And, if his cell phone falls into Job’s seat structure, I think he might just chalk it up as a loss.

In any event, fortunately for us, the earth is only our temporary home. Our real destination is heaven. It’s in this light that we need to see everything that happens.

Our Real Home

Of course, knowing that our real home is heaven doesn’t mean we have no responsibility to help others here on earth. But it does mean that when things go awry, problems spring out, and challenges appear, it is all merely part of the path that is meant to get us to heaven.

This is the great truth that Saint Ignatius of Loyola expresses so clearly in his Principle and Foundation right at the beginning of the Spiritual Exercises: Man is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save his soul. The other things on the face of the earth are created for man to help him in attaining the end for which he is created.

That is the purpose of all the things in my life: they are meant, not to hold me here to the earth or make me bitter, angry, and disappointed, but rather to help me get to heaven. Saint Teresa of Jesus compares life on earth to spending a night in a cheap hotel: “Let us not desire delights, daughters; we are well-off here; the bad inn lasts for only a night. Let us praise God; let us force ourselves to do penance in this life” (Way of Perfection, Chapter 40).

It might be bad, uncomfortable, and hard to rest, but it will be fine. After all, it’s just for a short time; we still have the rest of eternity before us, which is really where we want to go. If we use well the things of this life, we can make it to our destination. What is a little turbulence on the way to paradise, provided we make it there in the end? Why worry about lost baggage if we can’t take anything there with us anyways?