The seat was empty

“Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby

some have entertained angels unawares.”

Hebrews 13:2

Over the decades and hundreds of thousands of miles of flying, I have had a lot of seatmates. Sometimes there was little to no interaction but more often than not thoughtful conversations have developed. We are a strange species. It’s surprising how diverse our interests are. Through these relatively brief interactions, I have learned a lot of things I would otherwise never have known. A few have been amazing and stand out above the rest. But then there was Brenda…

The woman was late getting on the flight. Sitting down beside me, she slipped a copy of Becoming (Michelle Obama’s book) into the seat back pocket. I have a small toolkit of questions as possible conversation starters when I am in situations with strangers. Seeing the book, I thought this would be enough. As it turned out, it only lit a fuse that would take a couple of weeks to unfold.

How it began…

We were flying from Tucson through Dallas to the East coast. Molly and I had not been able to get seats together. My seat-mate had not arrived, and I was just about to signal Molly to move in beside me when the woman came through the door, down the aisle and eased into the vacant seat to my right.

I was in the middle of reading The Ministry of Utmost Happiness a novel by the Indian authoress Arundhati Roy. On the advice of a colleague, I picked the book up and found the writing impressive. If nothing developed with my new riding partner, I knew I could get a good bite out of the book on the last leg of the flight. In truth, even though I have an appetite for hearing people’s stories, I was hoping the interaction with this woman would be brief so I could dig back into this book.

“How do you like Becoming?” I asked

“Oh,” she replied. “I’ve just started it.”

Continuing the small talk, I said, “Have you read Dreams from my Father” by her husband?" “No,” she replied.

“What kinds of things do you read?” I continued, marking time and fighting the urge to get back to my book as quickly as I could.

“Mostly professional things,” she said.

I opened my mental checklist by asking, “Are you coming home or going out?” – “Have you been on Business or with family?”

The exchanges were polite. Nothing special.

Okay, I’ll wrap this up with a couple more questions and shut it down.

Mists of enchantment…

I’m not sure what transpired next, but in the few minutes between taxiing and flight, something happened - a door opened. It was like a key slipped into a lock and the invisible tumblers fell into place. Before I knew it, we were fully engaged as though we were old friends catching up. It was not the content of the conversation, but the spirit which drove it. The Ministry of Utmost Happiness? It wasn’t going anywhere and besides chatting with this woman was compelling. As happens when in the zone, time goes by quickly, and so it was for us.

We had been at it for some time, before I said, “You must have a name.”

“Brenda,” she replied. “I’m Ted.”

Almost before the three-hour-plus flight began, it seemed like it was over.

“Do you have a card?” I asked as we taxied to the terminal.

“No, I don’t,” she replied looking for something to write on. I had a parking stub from Tucson in my wallet. She wrote her email address. "Send me your mailing address, and I'll send you a book," she said. I told her I would do that and send her one of my books as well.

With a brief chat at the luggage carousel, we parted, and that was that. 

That night I sent Brenda an email along with my mailing address, saying how nice it was to meet her. I was not prepared for what happened next.

A gift in the mail…

When we got home from our eastern tour, there was a package waiting for me. It contained two copies of the same book: Journey of Spirit Walk of Faith – Our Relationship with God, by Brenda and her hubby Franklin. What to do?

Over the years I have tended to not read what this book appeared to represent. Like self-help books, my experience with spiritual books has not been the best. Readers often set unrealistic expectations for their own lives, and rather than being helpful, they can damage. But I had met Brenda. We had shared several hours together, and I knew with this gift to me, I would feel obligated to read it and thank her in a passive but polite way.

Not what I expected…

I learned a few things about Brenda and Franklin. They both had doctorates and in the early 2000s taught at universities in California. They were hard working, successful academics, living the American dream, who in second marriages found in one another a rhythm of love that was sustaining and uplifting. She was a California girl, born and raised and Franklin from across the country. They were ‘start of the day coffee drinkers’ chatting about what lay ahead. Importantly, they were both people of faith, having grown up in the church. Okay for that.

One night, they both had a dream — the same dream. In it, they were to move from their lovely home and neighborhood to a place where a new house would have rolling hills and be situated on a pond. It was mystifying, but over the next few weeks, they followed what they thought they were to do and began looking for a new home. As it turned out, the ‘cupboard was empty.’ Sweet dreams – no door.

Family vacations were a big deal to them, and because they were both so busy, a summer’s break was an adventure they loved coordinating and taking together. This particular year, they had completely different ideas of where they wanted to go. She to Cancun; he, an eight-hundred-mile drive down the East Coast. Really?? There was tension, but they reached a loving compromise. One week in the East and one week in Mexico.

Go East, my people…

On this drive, visiting a relative, and through a series of apparently random events, they stumbled upon an undeveloped property in the Baltimore, Maryland area - miraculously a property they had seen in their dream earlier in the year.

Like Abraham of the Old Testament, they believed they were to uproot themselves from California — no jobs waiting — and move to Maryland. This they did and in little more than a year found themselves living in the East and depending on God to deliver. The home (they built it) on rolling hills with a pond was precisely what they had seen.

In California, Brenda and Franklin had given seminars on cultural proficiency, helping to open doors of communication within culturally diverse communities. During a new neighbor mixer in their new neighborhood, they met a woman who chaired the local school board. 

At the time the Baltimore school system had received a lot of negative press related to the decline in cross-cultural relationships. That chat ultimately led to a meeting with the District Deputy School Superintendent. This woman, as it turns out, had been praying for months for help in stopping the deterioration of race relations among students and the community. 

During that meeting, the deputy realized that a substantial part of this solution was sitting right in front of her in the persons of Brenda and Franklin. They have had and continue to have a significant impact in Baltimore and around the country with their professional seminars.

It is not possible to come close to giving this story its due. I can only say, in my lifetime, this is the most remarkable series of events I have ever known. These two people had the courage to exercise their faith and to get into the arena…to put their actions where their faith was.

By now they have been in the Baltimore area for a decade and a half. Their willingness to be willing led them into an unknown adventure that not only changed their lives but by now, the lives of uncounted numbers of people. This story is compelling on so many levels. We so often say how wonderful it is when we find a passion in life that matches our passion for life. This, however, was over the top!

I don't know what or who comes next into my life, but this story will be hard to match. Molly and I not getting seats together on that flight, afforded me not just a pleasant conversation but one of the greatest contemporary stories of faith I have ever read.

- ted