Flight delays and other thought-provoking interruptions

Whenever we travel, one person usually does the worrying about staying on schedule. This helpful, often misunderstood person is a compulsive clock-watcher. This has been a rough summer for people who still wear watches and for Delta, which canceled more flights in one five-day period (5,470) than it did in 2018 and 2019 combined (5,370).

Carol and I are flying home from Denver. The flight is supposed to leave at 10:31. Uber says it is 24 minutes to the airport, but you never can be sure about traffic. TSA is unpredictable. I used to have pre-check. What did I do to lose that? I refuse to buy the Clear pass, the deal where rich people cut to the front of the line and regular people hate them.

It’s 30 to 45 minutes to the airport, 20 to 30 minutes for security and 10to 15 minutes to the gate. The plane is supposed to arrive at LaGuardia at 4:22. We lose two hours to time zones. We need to eat before we take off.

We leave for the 10:31 flight at 8:00. Just as we are getting to the airport, 8:24, I get a text that the flight is delayed. Now it is leaving at 11:21, arriving at 5:09. That is OK. I am not going to be frustrated. We will get home when we get home. But the good people at Delta are not through testing my chill attitude.

We take off at 12:36. If all goes well, we will get to LaGuardia about 6:15. We are over St. Louis when the pilot tells us all is not going well: “There is a thunderstorm in New York. We are going to circle Missouri for a while.”

I am still calm and collected. We circle for an hour before the pilot says, “We’re now heading to New York.”

We applaud, but at 4:30, the pilot announces, “I’m disappointed to say the storm has gotten worse in New York. We’re going to stop and refuel in Indianapolis. We’ll probably be on the ground for a couple of hours, so take all of your carry-ons, but we’re not going to get into the checked baggage.”

We get a lot of time to practice not being frustrated. Every 30 minutes for five hours, a manager announces: “We have no update. This flight is not cancelled. You cannot have your checked luggage. I’ll be back for another update in half an hour.”

At 10:30, 50 former passengers who do not share my relaxed attitude are waiting to ambush the manager. One woman is screaming that her medicine is in her checked bag. A male passenger is mansplaining FAA regulations to female airline representatives. The half dozen wannabe travelers who are shouting make it clear to the rest of us that we have to give up our plans, calendars and tomorrow’s to-do lists.

“When agendas dominate our lives, nothing is more threatening than an interruption.”

When agendas dominate our lives, nothing is more threatening than an interruption. We understand that schedules can be confining, but it is hard to think of an interruption as a gift. We live our schedules. Some of us would not know how to get through the day without a to-do list. We know what we will accomplish if no one gets in our way.

Yet, if we are fortunate, people keep interrupting. We have to decide if our time will be spent on what we planned or on the interruptions that threaten those plans. Before we say, “I don’t have time for that,” we need to slow down enough to make sure we do not turn down chances to do good. The easiest way to avoid responsibilities is to say we have responsibilities.

We plan our lives so carefully, and interruptions can be so disconcerting that it is hard to admit that if we are going to care for others, we have to be willing to be bothered. We complain that our work is being interrupted or we discover that our interruptions are our work.

We can refuse to give in to the inconvenience of interruptions. We can decide we will not be interrupted. We can stick to our list of things to do until we forget we need to be interrupted. We can stick to our agenda until people stop asking for our help.

If we want an organized, orderly life, we can have it. We can turn people away until they know not to ask us. We can ignore needy people until we do not even see them. We can act as if God is in our plans and never in our interruptions, even though the opposite is more likely to be true.

“The bridge over which grace passes is often a bridge built out of an interruption.”

The bridge over which grace passes is often a bridge built out of an interruption. If we lose sight of the essential, we will merely do what is important. When crucial moments appear, we need to comfort the hurting, listen to the lonely and offer kindness to those who feel hopeless.

God does not seem to care much for our attempts to impose order. God seems to think it is more important that we see heartbroken friends, broken homes and needy strangers. Some days we have to forget about what time it is.

At 10:30, while the crowd at Gate A8 in Indianapolis was going Lord of the Flies, one of the beleaguered airline representatives took pity and motioned for me to lean forward.

She whispered, “Do you or your wife have checked luggage?”

I spoke softly, “No.”

“We can’t cancel your flight for reasons I can’t explain, but that plane isn’t going anywhere tonight. I’m going to book you on the first flight tomorrow and get you a hotel room on the condition that we do this quietly.”

Carol and I had a restful night in Indiana and an uneventful flight home the next day. I wrote a column for Baptist News Global. I could have done without the interruption, but I can do better with the interruptions, too.

Brett Younger serves as senior minister at Plymouth Church in Brooklyn, N.Y.