Introducing Real Live Preacher’s First Guest Blogger: Sarah Bickle
In
2005 I may invite a few guest writers to visit us here. I’d like to
promise that I would do this, but I have the attention span of a
four-year-old. About the only thing I’m driven to do is write, so I
can’t make any promises. Also, don’t bother sending submissions because
if I do this it will be by invitation only. I have no time for anything
else.
I
met Sarah Bickle in 1990. She was a delightful 8th grader and I was a
guest youth minister doing a weekend retreat at her home church in
Plano. I was in my late twenties at the time. The first of the three
sisters was a toddler. What I can tell you was that it was like meeting
Anne of Green Gables in the flesh. She was that wonderful and charming.
I was back to do the same retreat the following year, and Sarah and I
became friends. We kept in contact over the years. I watched from afar
as she went to college, got married, and began a life for herself.
Recently she called to tell me that she and Scott are expecting their first child. I'm thrilled for them.
She
loves to write and used to send me letters or emails filled with
stories and dreams. Now she teaches, is a leader in a very interesting
church in Dallas, and yes, she writes as well.
Here she is. Charming and interesting as ever.
Joy Takes a 737
by Sarah Bickle
On a recent delayed flight out of Chicago O'Hare, I became re-acquainted with joy.
I am
not sure I knew her right away, but I could tell there was something
terribly familiar settling about the shoulders of my seatmates as we
suffered an interminable wait on the tarmac.
The
couple sitting next to me were in their early to mid-sixties, tanned,
with Australian-ish accents and extremely sturdy shoes. To be honest, I
was trying to ignore them at first. I had curled up into my new Anne
Lamott book and wanted absolutely no contact with anyone who could be
enthusiastic about anything before the coffee was served.
And
were they ever enthusiastic. The woman had her video recorder up to the
window and was taping our slow taxi, narrating for the benefit of
future viewers. "There's a small Cessna over there," she said, "and you
can see below there's a man fueling her up. Sweetheart, what does the
tank of a Cessna hold, how many liters? Do you remember what Captain
Bright said?"
Her
husband was busy perusing the safety pamphlet. ...On second thought,
perusing is too casual a word. It suggests that perhaps he was bored
and just wanted something to read. But no, he was eagerly pouring
over the safety pamphlet. "Hmm, what? Look here, two engines - I
thought it'd be a 747 but it must be a 737. I see then that the escape
route is ahead of the engines, not behind. Interesting."
They
kept trading plane facts like that for the next hour until finally the
captain announced take-off. Quickly the flight attendants came out to
show us how to fasten our seatbelts and bail out if necessary. Mr.
Possibly-Australian gave them his rapt attention, swinging his feet
below him like an excited kid, ecstatic at the possibility of take-off.
This
is when I started to see the traces of something I remembered. These
people had been talking knowledgably about flight technology for a
while now - this was obviously not their first plane ride. I was happy
to get off the ground finally, too, but what was so exciting to them?
Once
we'd reached cruising altitude, the couple began to carefully compare a
map from the in-flight magazine with the landscape below, trying to
determine which Great Lake we must be crossing on our way to Boston.
What can I say, I teach social studies. "It's Lake Erie," I offered,
and they showed their gratefulness by following up with a volley of
questions about the geography we were crossing.
I
got my answers, too - it came out that they were New Zealanders who had
made their annual pilgrimage to the International Air Rally in Canada
and were now going on to visit family in New Haven. The Rally,
apparently, is nirvana for flight enthusiasts - they told me at length
about the thousands of people and plans that they had seen, and in rapt
terms the woman even marveled at the excellent state of the
"facilities." . . ."All those people, and yet we never saw a whit of
trash, and all the toilets were quite clean. It was really remarkable."
Eventually,
they even drew me out on a couple of my own passions. Finding out that
they were kiwi farmers and sellers of organic honey, I couldn't help
but ask a bunch of questions about organic standards in New Zealand and
how U.S. trade laws affected their business. They asked me about the
then-upcoming elections, and I gave them an earful. They listened
interestedly, but found a way to direct the conversation back to
planes, "So, the new security measures here - have they changed air
travel much for you?"
Soon,
we'd arrived in Boston, and I gathered my forgotten book and they their
knapsacks and we said goodbye. I had been traveling all day and was
tired and hungry and now a bit wired on coffee, but I was buoyed by the
excitement the couple had shared with me. I felt strangely blessed.
Later,
after I'd finally found my way to my hotel and then to a bowl of
chowder, I recognized what I hadn't seen at first: joy. The couple on
the plane was full of real joy, and that joy had tinged my whole day
with a better light.
I was taught that God is the author of joy, that Jesus is the best joy-poem there is. I thought about the line in The Color Purple,
"I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field
somewhere and don't notice it," and I wonder if that applies to the
miracle of manned flight and interesting people, too.
I
wonder what it would look like if I walked around all the time like the
Kiwi Flight Enthusiasts, sharing my joy and bringing it out of the
people I met. What would it be like if I was constantly thinking about
how amazing God's love is, and talking about how good his kingdom is,
not in a boring or pushy way, but out of the wellspring of my own
excitement and gratitude?
I
wondered if I'd ever seen that done in a genuine way. I certainly don't
want to fake the joy by just talking about God all the time. I've seen
that kind of show, and it's ugly.
By
nature, it's just easier for me to focus on the ugly, on the stuff that
needs fixing, especially when it comes to institutions I know so well,
like the church. I have grown up Christian; there’s just not that much
that I haven’t seen. ...But specifically I have grown up; there is a
childlike joy that I used to have in God's presence that I have let
escape me. What I am seeing though, looking back at my seatmates on the
Chicago tarmac, is a glimpse of a light has drawn me into faith time
and time again.
As
we welcome the New Year, I think it might be time to rest again, to
stop working so hard at my faith. Hope, joy's near kin, is maybe the
closest I can get to that warm, bright presence that I caught a glimpse
of over Lake Erie. This year the best hope I can think of for myself,
for the church, for the very small and fragile earth that we cross in
amazing machines, is that we will chase joy and find her, and follow
her home.
Sarah McManus Bickle is usually an interesting person
but is currently spending all her free time watching missed Alias
episodes and staying close to her ginger ale, Wheat Thins, and barf
bag. When she isn't doing those things, she is a teacher, a lapsed
seminary student, and knitter in the Dallas area. She preaches
periodically at Journey Church www.Journeydallas.com and more of her writing is available at www.thedetour.net.
10:38:57 AM 
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