One of the Brothers in California told me
about the time when he was sent to the Philippines as a missionary, over fifty
years ago. He said that it took 17 days by boat. I like that. Today it only
takes 17 hours by plane. On a ship, you might spend the time walking along the
decks, chatting with passengers, having leisurely meals, doing some writing or
reflecting or nothing at all, and enjoying the rhythm of the journey. I’ve
never heard of anyone suffering from “ship lag.” On a jet airplane, on the other
hand, you are slotted into rather confining seats (“Yes, sir, 22D is down the
aisle and to the left.”) in very close proximity to people you don’t know
(Whose elbow will get that arm rest?), kept busy by mystery meals that appear
and disappear within 20 minutes, seduced by multiple movies of dubious
character, and lulled to catatonic complacency by the rhythm of the engine
drone. Perhaps “jet lag” is nature’s way of telling us that traveling this way
puts us out of sync with the universe, as if we didn’t know that already.
To be fair, plane travel is entirely
practical for most people. It’s the quickest way to get from point A to point B
on the globe. If we had the time, most of us would likely choose to travel
differently, by train or ship or even by car. There are still vestiges of the
excitement of that kind of travel, even with airplanes. It may be seen in the
way people jostle to get onto the plane at the beginning of their journey,
happily settling their baggage in the overhead, stuffing their magazine, books,
snacks, etc. in the seat pocket in front of them, harboring the simple
excitement of going on this really fast jet ride. However, that same excitement
seems to be reversed at the end of the plane trip, when most people can’t wait
to grab their stuff, escape down the aisle, hurry up the ramp, and move out
into the more familiar surroundings of mother earth. What began with eager interest
ends with stoic relief.
One might make an analogy to the way that
people approach life. Some see it as a journey to be experienced and enjoyed, as
children do, while others see it as a burden to be largely endured, as some
older people do. Some are happy at the prospect of life’s daily moments, while
others are fearful of life’s daily challenges. Most of us are probably a
mixture of both, weighing more to one side or the other depending on
circumstances and the state of our digestion. But all of us are provided with
the ability, the opportunity, to choose our disposition. Abraham Lincoln is
said to have remarked, “People are just about as happy as they make up their minds to be”. We can
all probably think of a few friends or family members who are good examples of this.
In fact, the ability to make a specific choice shapes the consequences of that
choice and its effect upon us. The
phrase “Fake it ‘til you make it” works because it’s driven by choice,
achieving its transformative power from the effect of cumulative choices. What
we choose to do literally changes our world and that of others.
I’ve always liked some advice that St. John
Baptist de La Salle gave in a letter to one of the Brothers: “To my mind, what
I must ask of God in prayer is that he tell me what he wants me to do and
inspires me with the disposition he wants me to have.” The second part is the
interesting bit, because we don’t often hear that about prayer. Yet I believe
that it may be the real driver for the first part. Our disposition /
perspective / attitude / viewpoint / frame of reference provides the means to
focus in on what’s important and what’s next for us.
Maybe that’s why ship and train journeys
continue to be attractive; not because they are efficient but because they are
not, giving us a chance to quietly walk the deck for a while. It makes me
wonder if my frequent flier miles can be used for ship or rail travel. That
would change my disposition about flying quite nicely.
