Cybercolumn by Berry Simpson: Hope

Posted: 10/27/06

CYBER COLUMN: Hope

By Berry Simpson

I was on a flight from Houston to Washington, D.C., sitting in an aisle seat “C,” even though my boarding pass said “A,” by the window, which would be my preference.

When I boarded the plane, a young professionally dressed woman was already sitting in my “A” seat. She didn’t seem the sort who would intentionally sit in the wrong seat just to get a window view. In fact, most people prefer aisle seats, since they have a bit more leg room and easier access to walk around, so if someone sits in the wrong seat, they are more likely to sit in an aisle seat than a window seat. Not me. I like the window seat so I can watch the passing 3-D map outside my window. But since this window looked out over the wing and my fellow passenger looked like she’d set up camp, I sat in the “C” seat, feeling generous and self-righteous.

Her name was Loranda, and she read every word on the plastic safety card, even the parts about ditching in water in case our plane went down in the Mississippi River. She was very sweet and soft-spoken, and she dug into her purse to offer a pen to me when she saw I was about to work on the Sudoku puzzle in the airline magazine. It was a lightening-quick, intuitive mom-like reaction, and her pen was out before I could blink.

When the pilot asked us to turn off our electronic devices, Loranda kept pushing buttons on her phone. The flight attendant passed by and reminded her to turn it off, and she smiled and said softly, “OK,” but she kept fooling around with it. It was a new phone, and she didn’t know how to turn it off. I guess she eventually got it turned off, since we made it to Washington without getting lost or crashing.

Later, after we all ate our cereal with raisins and milk, I noticed Loranda had her head down concentrating on something on her tray table. I asked if it would help to turn on her overhead light, but she said, “No” so softly I could barely make it out over the airplane noise. She said: “I’m just having a hard time with this adhesive. These keep getting stuck in the wrong places.” She was gluing very tiny plastic gems to the front of her brand new flip phone. She had a 3” x 3” waxy paper card covered with these little gems in perfect rows, each row a different color. She was gluing them carefully to the front of her new phone in wavy patterns, customizing it.

I had two thoughts right away: (1) It would never have occurred to me to glue something like that to my phone, never, and (2) how sweet to watch her take such care to brighten up this tiny part of her life. How many people would ever notice those tiny plastic gems.

For some reason I can’t explain, the scene on the airplane reminded me of a funeral I attended recently. I remember watching the family walk down the aisle, and toward the end of the line was an older woman quite frumpily dressed but with a tiny bright gold ankle bracelet. I was surprised by the bracelet that didn’t seem to match the rest of her outfit. I’ll admit I don’t understand the appeal of ankle bracelets, just like I don’t understand gluing little gems to a flip phone, but when I saw the woman at the funeral, I thought: She is looking for hope. Her tiny ankle bracelet set against her uncompromisingly dull clothes and hair seemed to be a faint grasp at beauty and hope.

I guess we all find ways to customize ourselves, and the technique we use is probably misunderstood by most people who see us. Maybe we decide to spell our name funny, or spike our hair, or get a tattoo, or pierce our tongue or eyebrow, or grow a beard, or glue tiny plastic jewels on our phone. We customize ourselves and our possessions, trying to find our place in the world.

When I started writing this, I thought it would be about identity. Now I think it is about hope. Norman Cousins wrote, “The human body experiences a powerful gravitational pull in the direction of hope.”

I was once in a living room saturated in hopelessness, and it was frightening to think someone lived like that. The owner of the house had no experience with Jesus, the source of all real hope.

Hebrews 6:19 says, “We have this hope as our anchor for the soul, firm and secure.” It is my desire, that in your own customized life, you’ve found the permanent hope that comes from Jesus.

Berry Simpson, a Sunday school teacher at First Baptist Church in Midland, is a petroleum engineer, writer, runner and member of the city council in Midland. You can contact him through e-mail at berry@stonefoot.org.