From Delays to Deep Conversations: A Day of Perspective

Travel days are often filled with delays.

Yet, they also offer glimmers of humanity while you sit around waiting.

Here are some of mine from yesterday.

My first travel day was devoid of much conversation, as I wrote about in the last post. But man, things changed on the second day.

Around noon, I went downstairs for a cup of coffee at the hotel I stayed in before the shuttle arrived to pick me up to take me to the airport.

I struck up a conversation with the manager, who was sitting next to me.

He was a very large man, and he shared that he was recently in a car accident. I expressed my sympathy to him.

He looked at me and said, "Thanks, but it was the best blessing. While I was in the hospital, they found a huge goiter on my thyroid. Now I understand why I couldn't lose any weight."

I saw that he was quite emotional about it, and that his life was already changing for the better. We had a nice conversation about faith. We talked about how everything happens for a reason, and how sometimes, God gives a little push to get us going in a new direction.

When I got to the airport and survived the TSA gauntlet, I immediately looked for a restaurant. I wanted to eat something other than protein bars and Venison Epic bars.

I found one, and the hostess seated me next to a couple about my age. And they weren't on their phones! We struck up a conversation and they shared they were heading to the Mile of Music Festival in Appleton, Wisconsin.

They went last year and had so much fun, that they were returning.

They loved the weather and said the festival goers were fantastic. The music was new and exciting and their son was also in one of the bands performing.

They shared that the festival was easy to walk to from the hotel and easy to navigate once there. They were surprised at how well organized it was.

I called Shayne and told him to put this festival on next year's calendar. When you find something that middle-aged Gen X'ers like, it needs to be noted.

It was time to get to my gate to Little Rock. When I arrived, I sat down next to a man with a big, shiny cross on his necklace.

He's a preacher. He related a story about a trip he just took to Michigan for a conference, and at the last minute, he found out that his nephew only lived a mile from the conference. His nephew has been estranged from his father, the preacher's brother, for years.

He was so happy to connect with him while he was up in Michigan, and he expressed real hope that his brother and his nephew might reconnect.

We discussed forgiveness and perspective.

He felt that its crucial to mend fences with a close family member as soon as you can, and he was afraid his brother would wait until it was too late.

We then reminisced about growing up in Arkansas fishing for crawdads and running over snakes on our bikes. He grew up in West Helena and preaches in Hazen. This area is flat farmland, very delta. I grew up in Loanoke county which is very similar.

As kids, we both had a couple of square miles to explore. We both laughed about surviving what kids got into back then and how it's so different now.

When I boarded the plane, I was in First Class because of being bumped the day before. I was on the aisle and a man was slumped and sleeping next to the window on my row.

We were on the tarmac for about an hour because a kid in the back threw up. The back of the plane was in turmoil before hazmat came to clean it up.

He slept through it all.

He woke up when we took off and I asked him what time it was because my phone was in the overhead bin.

That was how we started talking. We were in a deep conversation until the plane landed in Little Rock two hours later.

He was from the same town as my mother's family and I joked we were probably related somehow. My family's roots grew deep there.

We had a remarkable conversation about spirituality. He was also a part-time preacher. He was about to open up his own machine shop, since his job was now done. He had been a lead engineer for a company but this company was merging with another. He had been traveling weekly to North Carolina since January, and this was his last trip home.

We talked about spirituality and how to apply God's lessons daily.

How we fall short and also how we soar.

We also talked about perspective and the reach of our words and actions on others and how humans have a great capacity to love one another instead of reverting to hatred.

He just married the love of his life 4 years ago when he was 44. He said it already felt like a lifetime because when you love someone so fiercely and so completely, time bends back on itself.

This is what I love about traveling.

I love connecting to random people that after the connection, you realize it wasn't random at all.

I made it home.

As I was telling the day's stories to my step-father, we reflected upon my mother's death.

At the end of her life, she shared with us her experience that God was revealing to her what her impact was on others.

I would often find her gazing when I went into her room to adjust her position, or rub her legs.

When I disturbed her, she was often miffed.

She shared with me that she was getting a 'download' from God. He was showing her stuff that she found hard to express.

She said she was experiencing how she influenced those that she met in life. She saw how her essence rippled out into the world by the people she interacted with. She was awestruck by it, and it was one of the last things she talked about before she stopped talking.

She didn't have the perspective to see this during her life, but I guess God gave her a glimpse before she died.

The thing is, she wasn't a religious person in life at all. She was always searching for God, intellectually trying to figure out if she believed or not; but in the end, He found her as he was preparing her for the next adventure.

This is the exclamation point on my post from yesterday. Amazing things happen when we disconnect from our devices, and worries, and engage with the people we are around.

Who knows how your life impacts others when you care enough to share. Something you don't deem important may the be the lifeline someone needs. Random events during the day can lead to new insights when you put them together with the bigger picture of your life.

Perspective is a mighty thing, and when you get a glimpse, it can change your life.

Random fact about me: I was a snare drummer in my school's marching band.