I used to be a nervous flyer. The worst moment came years ago while flying through a thunder storm on a terrifying trip to New York. The turbulence was so bad, they ran out of sick-bags and the flight was diverted to Boston. The experience disturbed me to the extent that I tried to get off the plane as soon as we landed. I told the air steward I’d rather deplane and get a Greyhound bus to New York.
I had always loved that Simon and Garfunkel song America where they sing in perfect harmony about having “boarded a Greyhound in Pittsburgh”. I would do that instead. I would not die, still only in my 20s, on a plane, screaming, surrounded by used sick-bags. I would board a Greyhound in Boston. I would look for America.
As I made my case, a kindly air steward led me down the aisle to the cockpit to talk to the pilot. He didn’t tell me not to worry or offer platitudes about the statistical improbability of the plane falling from the sky. He simply told me about his wife and children who were waiting back home for him in Dublin. He said that even though his job was flying all of us passengers he also wanted to get safely home to his family. It shifted something in me. I returned to my seat comforted. I had faith. I believed. I knew he would get us to New York.
That pilot didn’t completely cure my fear of flying but he came close. I still get jittery when there is turbulence mind you. I’m the annoying person in the row behind who grips your seat-back, as though my white knuckle grasp will somehow stop the aircraft from moving about the place. I was doing exactly that on a flight back home from London recently when the young man sitting beside me noticed and tried to help. He offered to swap seats. He asked if I needed some water. And when none of that worked he just started chatting to me, swapping life stories. It helped.
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His name was Emmanuel. He was 25 and had grown up in Ghana, Amsterdam and London. He’d moved to Dublin recently. We talked about his mother, who makes an amazing Ghanian stew. He told me about his difficult past and his hopes for the future. I told him about my cancer. He talked about his Christianity and about trying to find a good church community in Dublin. I told him about U2, a new song of theirs called COEXIST: (I will bless the Lord at all times?) He’d never heard of U2. I tried singing Beautiful Day and One but he looked at me blankly. I asked him for his favourite artists. I hadn’t heard of them either.
It turned out we lived close to each other in Dublin’s north inner city. We were enjoying the chats so I waited while he got his bag from the carousel and we shared a taxi home.
When we got to my street, Emmanuel asked if he could pray for me. Since being diagnosed I have become used to people praying for me. For someone who has a lot of issues with organised religion, I actually don’t mind. It’s all love and good vibes. But Emmanuel really meant business. While the taxi driver waited patiently, he took both my hands in his and said some beautiful, hopeful words to his God about the good things he wished for me and my family. Outside, I could see my neighbours on the street taking in the scene. I was mortified. But also moved. I said goodbye and thanked Emmanuel.
It feels as though lately, the God so many other people believe in keeps trying to get my attention. The day I met Emmanuel, my sister-in-law from Co Armagh sent me an hour-long video of a preacher man testifying. I’d usually run a mile from this stuff but for some reason I watched the whole powerful hour.
A few days later, I went to visit a friend from the distant past in hospital, someone I hadn’t seen in decades. He ate the banana bread I’d made, told me stories and poems and quoted Bible scripture with such infectious joy I was almost jealous. He’d been “saved” since I saw him last. He had “met God”. He’d had an actual come to Jesus moment. Like my sister-in-law and the man in the video. Like Emmanuel whose name, I discovered, means “God is with us”.
You’ve probably heard about the God-shaped hole. Maybe Simon and Garfunkel were writing about it in that song America: “Kathy, I’m lost,” I said though I knew she was sleeping. “I’m empty and aching and I don’t know why.”
Being “saved”, the “saved” people tell me, means an end to the emptiness and the aching. The Christians I keep meeting want me to share in their joy. I wish I could. I have some beliefs of my own. I lean towards Buddhism. I feel at home in a meditation hall. But to be “saved” you have to believe in the word of God. That Jesus died for your “sins”. To be “saved” you’ve got to have faith. I can’t. I don’t. Even if lately, quietly, I’ve sometimes found myself wishing I did.
