peace

Europe Dunn Right Episode 1: When the Worst Thing Becomes the Best Thing

We started our great European adventure in the Atlanta airport. We’d bought tickets with Air Canada that flew from Atlanta to Toronto and then on into Istanbul. Our plan was to spent 12 hours in Istanbul, doing a mad dash through the Hagia Sofia and the Blue Mosque before continuing on to Athens. Over the past few years Istanbul has become a source of fascination for me, so when I found out that the cheapest way into Europe was to fly through Istanbul, I was all about it.

We spent the night in Atlanta so we’d be able to arrive at the airport bright and early before our 11 AM flight. We were among the first people to check in. When we checked in we were told that we had no seat assignments, but not to worry because they would be assigned at the gate. We got coffee, went to our gate and read for a while, waiting for an agent to appear.

When the agent showed up, we politely asked for seat assignments. She said to sit down and wait and she would give them to us as soon as she had them. We politely and patiently sat down. 30 minutes later, we checked back in with her and were given the same answer. I tried to be calm, but I was starting to get nervous.

A few minutes later the gate agent announced that the boarding process was beginning. We stood at the desk and said, “We still don’t have seat assignments.” She asked us to wait just a minute until she was done boarding these people. At this point it became clear to me that we were not getting on this flight. As the final passengers boarded the plane, the gate agent finally told us, “You purchased tickets, but not seats, so we’ll have to put you on the next flight.”

I collapsed into a chair where I tried to do deep breathing exercises while popping anxiety pills. In spite of being fairly well-traveled and very flexible in many ways, I am not good with travel delays or changes in travel plans. Any type of travel where there is the potential to miss a connection–a flight, a train, etc.–makes me physically anxious. And when things go wrong, even though they are usually fixable, I freak out.

Once everyone had boarded our flight and the door was closed, we waited for the gate agent to give us a new itinerary. The best they could do was a flight that got us into Istanbul late in the afternoon–not leaving enough time for us to leave the airport and see anything before our evening flight to Athens. We asked if we could just fly directly to Athens since we wouldn’t have time to see anything in Istanbul anyway, but the gate agent said she could only book us tickets to our original destination. I angry-tweeted at Air Canada for a while while being very polite to the gate agent. We were both disappointed to realize we’d miss this whole day of our trip and end up spending two full days sitting in airports.

And then, the agent had us sign the paperwork for the airline to send us compensation for being involuntarily removed from our flight. Because we’d been bumped from that international flight, the airline sent us large checks (not travel vouchers). When we added everything up later we realized these checks covered almost exactly half of the cost of our entire 18 day trip to Europe. Which means we got a 1/2 priced trip to Europe.

I know. We’re still in shock.

The thing that seemed like the WORST THING EVER to the anxious traveler in me turned out to be an enormous blessing.

We flew to Toronto and then to Istanbul where we sat in the airport for about five hours before flying on to Athens. Since Jonathan’s luggage didn’t make it to Istanbul, we got to spend part of that time getting him Turkish boxers and t-shirts to tide him over until his bag arrived.

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Here’s Jonathan, killing time in the International Departures lounge in the Istanbul airport, waiting until we can check in for our flight to Athens.

I can’t finish this post without talking about how close to home it hit to hear about the Istanbul airport bombing, just 3 weeks after we’d been there. I think about the 36 people who died and the 147 more who were injured and know that it could so easily have been us. I am grateful for our safety, but I do not believe we are entitled to it any more than anyone else.  Today Turkey erupted into chaos as the military attempted a coup. I can’t help but thing of all the lives that have been and will be lost as the government and military struggle. I pray for peace and it feels inadequate. As-Salaam-Alaikum.

 

 

 

 

Mindful Mondays: Walks Without Destinations

One of the things I like best about living in the South is that winters are shorter and milder, but also less gray than they are in colder areas. Even more than the cold, the eternal grayness of winter is what tends to get me down. It’s been cold enough in South Carolina for us to get some snow flurries last week, but the sun has still been out most days and the sky has been clear and bright. Today it practically feels like spring.

I’m an on-again off-again runner. At different points in my life I’ve trained for and run half marathons and marathons, while in other seasons I’ve done no running whatsoever. I’ve been trying to get back into running for the past month or so with only limited success. It’s always hard to start again once you’ve stopped completely, which I suppose should be incentive not to quit in the first place, but it never seems to work.

In all the self-pressure to get my rear in gear and start running again, I forgot how nice it can be just to walk. On these clear and bright winter days I am content to walk for miles, wandering through neighborhoods I’ve never seen before and down streets I’m still learning the names of. Sometimes I walk while I talk on the phone to my sister or to my mom. Sometimes I walk with my husband and we dream about the houses we pass and an imaginary future where we might live in one of them. But sometimes  I walk with only my own breathing for company, and these are the walks I like best of all.

These are the moments when I’m not so focused on where I’m going or how fast I’m getting there, but simply appreciate where I am. On these walks I can go as slowly as I want to. I can pay attention to the way the roots of the oak trees ripple under the sidewalks, breaking through in some places, and to the chalk drawings left behind by little artists who forgot to sign their names. I walk until I find myself wandering back home, at peace with myself and with the world around me, knowing that even if it only lasts an hour or two, it will be enough.

My eyes already touch the sunny hill.
going far beyond the road I have begun,
So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp;
it has an inner light, even from a distance-

and changes us, even if we do not reach it,
into something else, which, hardly sensing it,
we already are; a gesture waves us on
answering our own wave…
but what we feel is the wind in our faces.

~”A Walk” by Rainer Maria Rilke (translated by Robert Bly)

The Color of Anxiety

If Anxiety was a color it would be orange.

Jolting, abrasive, in-your-face, caution-cone orange. Orange like the fire that burns in my belly or, more often lately, shoots fiery bolts of pain from somewhere under my arm up across my collarbone to my chest, down around my forearm into my fingers and back up over my shoulder ending somewhere between my trapezoid and deltoid. Sharp, electric jolts from some bundle of nerves that are pinched tight, ready to explode in a thousand little needle-pricks at the barest provocation.

Anxiety is flamboyant, it waves a flag and shouts and refuses to be ignored, but it has a subtle side as well. iI can hide itself in shadows. It tucks itself into corners and lurks behind closed doors just waiting for the smallest opening. You go about your life without giving it much thought. Then it slips in like light seeping through a gap in the curtain and pools inside faster than you can imagine. Almost instantly it invades the whole room.

Anxiety knows how to shout louder than reason. It knows how to push aside what is true, what is rational, and what is comforting and stoke fear.

Anxiety knows how to isolate. It knows how to make you feel that you carry a burden you can never really share – because it weighs too heavily on others or because they never really understand. You try to explain but they can’t hear what you’re saying. You say, “Anxiety” and they hear, “Stressed. Worry-wart. Over-dramatic.”

“You’re being ridiculous.” “You need to let things go.” “You should stop worrying.” “You need to trust God more.” And they are right. And they are wrong. And either way and both ways they make you feel more alone.

Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”

I don’t know how to choose peace. When my chest gets tight and my heart races and I feel like I can’t breathe, I don’t know how to choose peace over fear. I don’t know how to find peace when a sudden, unexpected burst of panic hits me. I don’t even know if I can.

Instead, I find myself praying for Peace to find me.

“Give peace, O Lord, in our days because there is no one else who will fight for us If not You, our God.”