Forgiving Brutish Actions
By Terry Reis Kennedy
I was furious. I intended to rename British Airways, Brutish Airways, after a recent trip from the US to India.
We boarded flight 0214 out of Boston on schedule. Customers needing assistance, those traveling with children, and a few big spenders swept through the open doors. Then, the rest of us were herded into the skinny end, passing a nearly empty first class, on through a fairly vacant business class.
Stuffed into our mini seats, where most of us would definitely suffer circulation restrictions, I wondered how we would endure the hours to London’s Heathrow, and on to India.
Being a short woman, I could at least move my feet. Luckily, I had booked my seat on the aisle. I had done the preliminaries on-line, including issuing my own boarding pass which was the suggested method —to save time. Theirs!
My mind really was justifying my angst. Humph! Such a fuss made about the weight of our luggage, while some crew members are more than hefty. And where are they when you need help loading overhead luggage in shoebox-size compartments?
Jammed in like chickens going to slaughter we prepared for take off. But just as the sweat began to drench our faces, due to the extreme heat, the captain announced that wouldn’t fly. We had a failed communication system, not allowing contact with London, he said.
Outrage erased my dregs of inner peace. Don’t they check these details out before they load us on? I tried to calm myself, remembering my years of spiritual teachings. Babies fussed, reminding me that even the sinless were uncomfortable. Obviously, they were not karma free, either.
I roamed up to first class hoping I might find an open door to catch a breeze. When I saw the two passengers there drinking champagne and being served snacks by chatty flight attendants my Ego triumphed. I thought, how unjust! Back in the stinky steerage tail of the malfunctioning aircraft we had begged for drinks. Eventually, we were served dismal-looking lukewarm water—in plastic.
After about two hours, we took off in spite of our over-loaded tail end and the popping champagne corks up front.
At Heathrow, things got less brutish and more bratish for those of us heading home to Bharat. We were delayed over five hours while the damaged engine of flight 0119 was repaired. De-planed we waited in the pricey innards of Terminal 5.
Soon, serious complaints began. As compensation for our troubles we were issued food vouchers worth five pounds each. Meanwhile, it costs nearly five pounds for a cappuccino there. However, we found a relatively affordable sandwich shop that let us use the vouchers combined with our own money to purchase what we could. I had dry feta cheese on brown bread with chlorinated water.
After much investigation, we located the duty manager, Mr. Michael Clok. He was a charming and well-coiffed young man who looked like a teenager. He said he was sorry but he could not do more than issue us food vouchers. The company rule was a five-pound voucher per passenger per two-hour wait. We could be issued another one if we stayed another two hours, he said. We could claim it at Bangalore.
We arrived at Bangaluru too tired to ask for the second voucher. And there we were accosted by hospital-masked workers who collected our health forms, filled out earlier. The masked men took our temperatures, checking us for Swine Flu symptoms—which I’m sure they hoped we weren’t carrying.
Obviously, we were delayed even more. Where is the justice in this story? I had to dredge it up from deep within. I had to forgive everyone involved. Love all; serve all, I had been taught this for too many years to count.
Soon I was laughing. We are One: the tired, over-worked British Airways crews, the masked workers afraid of being contaminated by germs, the travelers who had to endure the delays. Nobody escapes their humanness; yet the divine shines within each of us.
And putting the experience in a spiritual perspective, I could see how blessed I really am—able to fly from one place to the other, able to complain without fear of losing a job, able to meet new friends in cramped quarters.
God, forgive me for not remembering the millions who would have been thrilled just to have my dry feta cheese sandwich and my luke-warm water. I am sorry for my brutish ways.
