All God's children

It’s an aircraft. It’s a big aircraft, with 10 seats across divided by two aisles. It is divided into sections; first, business, coach and the back of the bus. Now the designation of back of the bus is not one that the airlines recognize, but for those of us enroute to Tel Aviv there was no doubt about it – there was a difference between coach and the back of the bus. First, of all this aircraft was no outfitted with personal video in the headrest of the seat in front of you, but everyone was expected to watch the four movies selected by someone in authority in the order they had selected. Now 20 years ago this was a big screen. By today’s standards, it wasn’t even medium screen. I can’t tell you about the quality of the resolution, because in the back of the bus, the video was not operational. 10 hours no video.
Well, video is not all that important or significant. It’s only a ten hour flight (perhaps you fly to places too far away when 10 hours sounds reasonable). You could always read for some of that time. Except that in the back of the bus the overhead lights do not work. That’s not completely accurate. Through about an hour of experimentation one of my seat mates discovered that the lights did work. Our switches controlled the lights seven rows in front of us. And while that was entertaining for awhile, particularly when the people in that row couldn’t figure out what was going on; it did not have the capability of sustaining our interest. However, the lack of lights did completely eliminate the possibility of reading while in flight. 10 hours no video, no reading.
That left the options of sleeping and people watching. And while sleeping is possible on an aircraft in the back of the bus, it is by no mean comfortable. And the opportunities for people watching were endless. In the back of the bus with me was a group of young people from New York who were as a group going to Israel. They were Jewish, and many spoke fluent Hebrew. One was the chief negotiator and reshuffled people around in their seats so that they could be with loved ones, or ones they wanted to love. Several of them crisscrossed the aircraft by walking across the armrests. I think that is an activity reserved for the very light and graceful.
But the best people watching began as the sun peaked out over our horizon. First the Muslims came to the back of the bus, spread their blankets and began to pray. Then the Jews came to the rear of the aircraft and began their prayers. Women with head scarves, and bearded men with shawls, together in the back of the bus praying to their god. And this Christian watched as nothing divided us and we prayed together.
This is a thin place.