One of my favorite movies is Groundhog Day. In case you haven’t seen it, the main character, Phil Connors (played by Bill Murray), relives the same day over and over again. Everyone that Phil encounters is unaware of this and lives the day as a unique experience, with only Phil realizing that he is in some sort of supernatural time warp. The unspecified but seeming purpose of Phil reliving this day is so that he can redeem himself by amending his decadent ways and become a truly self-sacrificing person of virtue.
For frequent business travelers (a cohort of which I have become a member), the all-too-regular routine of going to the airport and boarding flights to business destinations seems very much like Groundhog Day.
A recent trip started like so many of the others.
The alarm goes off at 4:30 AM like every other Thursday morning. Forty minutes later I back out of the driveway. After a 25 minute drive, I pull into off-site parking and then take the shuttle to the terminal. Arriving at the terminal, I re-print my boarding passes, take the A-List short-cut line through security, harbor uncharitable thoughts about the TSA agent screening luggage and taking way too long, and then start the trek to the departure gate du jour.
Once I arrive at the gate I look for an open spot to set up my laptop to download my emails, check stock quotes, and then surf the Internet news sites. Following that, I survey the boarding area to see how crowded the plane will be. That morning I notice a gent a bit older than me, ear buds implanted and listening to his IPOD, seemingly tuning out the rest of the world, which I thought a bit strange. Truth be told, I uncharitably thought him to be a bit odd, a man in his late 50s plugged in like a teenager.
Since I travel every week, I am entitled to be one of the first to board the aircraft and was intent on grabbing one of the exit-row seats. As I boarded the plane I immediately detected that these seats were already filled, which provoked more uncharitable thoughts. So I instead took an aisle seat near the front of the plane, unpacked my breviary so I could do my morning prayers (still blissfully unaware of my current bout of hypocrisy), and stowed my bag. As luck (or more likely Providence) would have it, Plugged-In Guy (not his real name) asks if he can take the seat next to me.
The first thing Guy does after settling in is to offer me a free-drink coupon (cash value of $5 for those of you who do not fly). This act of unprovoked generosity started the rumblings of contrition inside of me. We then struck up a conversation that lasted nearly all of the two-hour flight.
Guy turns out to be a fallen away Catholic, but he has a heart the size of a mountain. Growing up around the time of Vatican II, he did not so much leave the church as slide away. He was very willing to talk about his beliefs, about the forces in the universe of charity and kindness, which he truly embraced. He did not reject Christ and the Church. He simply did not know them.
During this time I prayed to the Holy Spirit to give me words and to use me as His instrument. At one point Guy shared with me that his youngest son was in prison, to which I responded that I would pray for him. Guy seemed very much to appreciate this. I also told him about the “Catholic Come Home” web site (www.catholicscomehome.org), saying he might enjoy it. I also suggested that if he was in the neighborhood, he might want to stop by our parish on Sunday, and that I thought he might like that as well.
At the conclusion of the flight we wished each other well, with me quietly thanking God for giving me the gift of meeting and sharing Christ’s message with this kind soul.
As that day’s reenactment of Groundhog Day was closing, I took account of several lessons that I learned:
- Although we may believe ourselves to be faithful Catholics and to be close to God, our stony hearts may really make us more closely resemble the Pharisees (or the early versions of Phil Connors).
- Many of our brothers and sisters who do not know the person of God may still radiate His love, so we should NEVER write them off or marginalize them. In fact, as with the case of Guy, there is often much that can be learned from them.
- Like the converted Phil Connors, we need to continually work (and pray) to transform ourselves to where we see and love all our brothers and sisters the way that Christ sees and loves us.
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This is just as true for business travelers as it is for stay-at-home moms. I am too often chastened by my own inability to arise from my routine selfishness and acknowledge the great opportunity to lavish love on those the Father has entrusted to me. And with that, I must jet