Lighten our darkness ~The Book of Common Prayer
Sunlight is the best disinfectant ~Louis Brandeis
There's no reason to become alarmed, and we hope you'll enjoy the rest of your flight. By the way, is there anyone on board who knows how to fly a plane? ~ Elaine, in Airplane!I was once trapped in the cabin of a DC-10, on the ground at the Dar es Salaam airport, for three hours. (There’s a statement not everyone can make, although my 350 fellow-passengers can.) It was steamy-hot to begin with, and it didn’t get any cooler as the hours passed. I’m a lanky guy, and since the plane was full, the only relief from the torture-chamber leg room of the coach seats was exactly the same as if we were in the air: an awkward pacing up and down the aisle. The down-time at Dar, when added to the scheduled flight time from Kilimanjaro to Amsterdam, made for a total knees-to-chin ordeal of eleven hours. But enough about my personal myalgic nightmare.
The captain came on the public address system every once in
a while with a vague announcement about working on the situation and hoping to
get off the ground shortly. But here’s the thing: he didn’t come on frequently
enough, and he didn’t give us any real information. Thirty to forty-five
minutes passed between these ambiguous announcements – enough time (and little
enough information) to allow rumors to begin circulating among the passengers. In
our scheduled arrival from Kilimanjaro we had experienced a mildly rough
landing – the kind where the wheels hit the runway with a bit of a jolt – and
someone translated this into the pilot having broken the landing gear. It
turned out that our delay had absolutely nothing to do with the landing or the
landing gear, but with no regular updates or precise reporting to counter this
bit of fancy, it made the rounds of the cabin. And that was just one of the
rumors. As the mystery continued and the atmosphere became more stifling, one
passenger across the way actually stood up, began tearing off his suitcoat and
wailing something like, “I can’t take it anymore…” (I’m sure that’s not what he
said, but, hey, it’s been a few years.) I half-expected members of the cast of
“Airplane” to come down the aisle and calm him down with wise-cracks and bad
puns.
Just before finally taking off, the captain made a cheery
announcement that the air-conditioning (of course!) had been repaired and we’d
be on our way. I don’t have any idea about what could have alleviated our
physical discomfort (short of letting us off the plane), but our mental torment
could have been lessened or eliminated with a generous dose of information.
This episode and its lesson came back to me today as I was
on a much more prosaic journey: travelling up I-35 to make a hospital call in
Minneapolis. I had planned my trip with a fairly strict time allowance, and as
I saw indications of road construction ahead, I began to experience just a bit
of nervousness about my timetable. And then I noticed a number of things, one
after the other. They were pieces of information.
First I saw a sign telling me to prepare for one-lane traffic, then a notice
telling me to expect to stop if the sign’s lights were flashing (they weren’t);
just as I was contemplating a self-designed detour, I saw a placard lit up with
digital numerals that indicated how long it would take to get to the river
crossing (the end of construction and the gateway into downtown Minneapolis –
my destination). This estimated-time signboard allowed me see with a glance that
my detour would be a fool’s errand – adding many more minutes to my trip than
staying the course and winding my way patiently through the construction zone.
Finally, there was a notice stating that both lanes should be used until the
point of merging into a single lane. (This relatively new and
helpful method
makes it possible for the driver in the left lane to approach the merge without
getting the one-finger salute from the driver in the right.) With each bit of
information, my nervousness lessened, and I arrived at the hospital with time to spare.
Information got me through. Light in the darkness. The enlightening
and therapeutic value of information is why a church should design ways to help
the visitor navigate through the liturgy, it is why I should tell my friend
what’s been bothering me, it is why family secrets are almost always
destructive, it is why web sites ought to be kept up to date, it is why the
president should level with us, it is why I should tell my wife that I love
her, it is why I should read the instructions before assembling the IKEA desk.
And it is why perspiring passengers in a grounded airplane
should be given regular and illuminating updates – or be let out into the
sunlight.
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