Even If the Bag Does Not Inflate

He was waiting for me in the baggage claim area. His name was Gabriel, and he was my designated greeter.

I’d just landed in Chicago, there to present at a weekend event for pastors and churches seeking to find renewal and vitality in their life and ministry together. I’d meet them and hear their stories later in my trip.

But for the moment, I was able to hear a little of Gabriel’s story.

I was wearing a hat that said “REV” on it. It’s actually from a brewery (from Chicago, in fact), but many of my colleagues and friends in ministry thought they’d also be fun to have given our profession. Gabriel noted the letters and asked if I was a reverend, and I said I was.

The conversation quickly took on a depth I’ve experienced before but for which I wasn’t very prepared in this instance. “What advice would you have for a 22-year-old just starting out? Like, what do you wish someone had told you at that age?” He asked this with a curious smile, though likely also hoping for a little real wisdom.

I scrambled to think of an answer, and finally said “Don’t think you have to have it all figured out yet. Experiment, make mistakes, and don’t feel pressure to have everything mapped out.” That was the best I had for him and for my past self. His appreciation for my response seemed genuine.

His deep questions continued. “So, I was baptized when I was a baby, and I can’t remember it at all. Later on I took my first communion and then there was something else but I can’t remember what it was called.” Confirmation? “Yeah! That’s it. Except I didn’t go through with that one. Do you think it’d be okay to be baptized again? I’d like to have something I remember.”

My inner theological curmudgeon balked at answering this one. Did I really have the time and the words to talk about baptism being valid the first time? Is that what he needed to hear? We were, after all, half-watching for my bag to roll around on the conveyor belt.

“I get that it’d be meaningful for you to go through something that you remember. So maybe it’s worth thinking about.”

Some readers will judge me for this answer, and I’ll live with that.

My bag appeared, as did the car to take me to my hotel. We shook hands, and I began my ride through busy city traffic.

I’ve flown so often as part of my work that I have parts of the pre-flight safety speech memorized. “Take a minute to locate the exit closest to you.” “Please take a moment to review the safety data card in the seat pocket in front of you.”

My favorite part is when they explain the oxygen masks that drop from the ceiling: they show how to put it on, they instruct you to put your own on first before helping others, and then they say, “Oxygen is flowing, even if the bag does not inflate.” That is, even if there might not be a visible sign of airflow, it’s still happening. You can’t see it, but it’s present and moving.

The rest of the weekend, I did my best to provide some helpful guidance to people doing their best to minister to their people in increasingly difficult times came and went. Ministers and churches and staff like me have heard it and know it all by now: shrinking budgets, increasingly empty pews, greater competition from other cultural institutions. The questions and concerns about how best to be the church are numerous and certainly rumbled underneath the proceedings.

I kept thinking about Gabriel and his questions and his wonderings. Was he connected to a church himself? Did he have a faith community to nurture him through his discovery of the answers for himself? Would he celebrate a re-baptism with them?

I’ll never know any of this, of course. But a conversation in baggage claim served to me as a reminder that such spiritual seeking is happening no matter the state of our pews and budgets. And in response, the Spirit is still moving and alive and breathing around us no matter how things turn out for our institutions. However, the results and effects may not be as measurable or big or obvious as we wish or hope.

Oxygen is still flowing, even if the bag does not inflate.