"Empty your pockets, take off your shoes, remove your belt, now walk through the scanner. Sorry, there's still something there...making a pinging sound. Stretch out your arms. We'll try the manual scanner."And this is where it gets difficult. With no belt to keep up my trousers with my arms outstretched like a scarecrow, somethings's got to give..my self confidence...my self esteem.. my trousers!
You've got it...I'm the tourist passing through 'Security' at the beginning of my vacation. At last the long awaited moment has arrived..after all the hassle of booking my flight, striving to strike the right balance between what I need to take away with me and the weight I'm allowed to carry without further expense. Most importantly, there's the visit to the bank to purchase foreign currency.
Indeed, I've felt like the tattered rags draping Scarecrow Peter. With a certain amount of trepidation I've survived the scrutiny at the ticket desk. All my documents were in order. Thank God for that! Big sigh of relief! Then, much humbled, I've cleared the last hurdle and am allowed to emerge from 'Security,' -more or less unscathed. Once again, 'Thank God!' Eventually I was able to enjoy the blissful serenity of simply relaxing, waiting in the Departure Lounge until summoned to go to the appropriate embarkation gate.
This is what we have come to in this day and age of much vaunted enlightenment and progress! 'And I said in my alarm, 'No man can be trusted..' These days no one trusts anyone any more. It's a sad state of affairs in which each and all are suspected of being possible terrorists, carrying some kind of explosive in the heel of his shoe or in the lining of his jacket...So help us, the most innocent looking guy or doll may have a heart encrusted with violent intentions.
What to do, but subject every single person to the most meticulous scrutiny? There's no point in getting worked up that modern-day scanners can reveal invisible unmentionables. Better for us all to have been exposed and to have been granted a fair chance of staying alive than for everyone to have been left alone and for none of us to have come through to be welcomed at 'Arrivals.'
After writing all this I feel disposed to compose a Novena for the Conversion of all Would-be Terrorists...God has no problem in replacing hearts of stone into hearts of flesh. In the meantime I meet God, mywaygodsway, through Psalms such as,
"He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High and abides in the shade of the Almighty says to the Lord: "My refuge, my stronghold, my God in Whom I trust!" (Ps. 91).
Better than this I cannot do!
Peter O.P.
Next week Isidore will meet God in old people
I know it's annoying, and feels like an invasion of privacy, being scanned, and checked, and searched; but I try to see it (a) as an exercise in humility (I'm not good at that), and (b) as an act of generosity to my fellows, allowing them to have the security of knowing that I'm not going to harm them.
ReplyDeleteNone of which, of course, makes it any easier or more enjoyable !