Perspective

Sunset from a spot in the medieval hill town of Todi, Italy
close to "our" apartment where we spent a week.
It took a grueling 33.5-hour weather-complicated series of flights to get home, but my wife, daughter and I are now back in Camden County after 21 days in Italy and France. The trip was phenomenal and, up until the return voyage, very inspiring and restorative. But I should save writing about that for a time when I haven't been up 42 hours straight as I have now. And in this time I need to stay awake before crashing at a decent hour to get my head back in the this time zone, I'll share the last story of the trip, something from this morning.

We arrived in the Atlanta airport at midnight last night along with thousands of others coming in following that busiest southern hub having fully shut down earlier in the day for a violent thunderstorm. Our plans to fly on to Jacksonville were on hold for a half-dozen hours. So many of us were effected there was no way for us all to make arrangements for a motel and we ended up trying to catch some sleep in the airport by the hundreds. We were up on the second floor of the atrium with a hundred or more of our newly sidelined sojouners thankful for the relative quiet and the thin carpet over the concrete of the floor.

By three this morning, there airport was quite cool. I had seen others with airline blankets and I went in search of ones for my wife and daughter. I discovered that Delta had given them all out. Then I saw a man and woman in a restaurant with three unopened and when I asked, they readily offered one for my family. I went off and got them a bit warmer for our wait and settled in myself. Another hour passed and I was downright chilled to the bone, cuddled against the wall with my head against my backpack trying to rest and I heard a rustling, felt warmth and looked up to see a women covering me with a blanket. A fellow traveler, she had found more fresh blankets and she was out just after 4 a.m. taking the initiative to provide some care.

Hers was such a simple selfless act. I was touched. I thanked her for her kindness and then watched as she worked her way around the upper atrium blanketing bone weary and chilled to the core travelers. How very Christlike.

Even with the storms, the missed flight and the uncertain morning schedule ahead as we waited on standby, I found watching the care of the woman showed this morning for her fellow travelers was a great way to end our three week trip.

I'm glad to be home.

peace,
Frank+
The Rev. Frank Logue, Pastor