Unmerited grace, or a glimpse of the promise of the realm of peace? Into the blizzard of seasonal travel nightmare stories, I sing of this glad tiding. May each reader be equally blessed this Advent, if not while on the road, then in some other unexpected way — because you deserve it.
At the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport early this morning, as I headed to my house from the House of Bishops, a young security officer said the TSA line was shorter at the other end of the terminal. Having heard that one before, I nevertheless trusted in his good news, reset my sights, and found a line labeled “general passengers” — and yet no line, no general passengers in immediate sight, and no one even to glance at my boarding pass.
I plunged ahead. The TSA PreCheck line was preloaded and already clogged up. CLEAR was not so much. We few general passengers surged forward on the wings of angels. I didn’t stop walking until a smiling TSA officer asked for my ID. No one was at the conveyer belt, where the officer motioned me to my place with a welcoming expression that suggested a moist towelette might be next.
I semi-divested in record time and headed for the scanner, where the officer smiled (everyone was smiling at this check point) and pointed at my shoes. I hurled them over the plexi screen into an empty bin. Two points! Nothing in my bags was of interest to secondary.
I told another passenger that I’d never gone through security faster and that we’d left the VIPs in the dust. He grinned and said, “I wouldn’t sit in first class now if they paid me!”
[Photo: After dinner last night in Minneapolis with Bishops Jeremiah Williamson, Gerry Wolf, and William Franklin]