Sometimes When You Fly, You Meet Angels

Last month, I was blessed to participate in a “Footsteps of Paul” tour of Greece, retracing the apostle’s missionary journeys across Greece (part of which was known as Macedonia at the time) to establish the first Christian churches in Europe. Next week I’ll start sharing photos and stories from this faith-stoking adventure.

But today, I have a different sort of heart-warming story to tell you. It happened on the final leg of our Greece journey home when our plane landed in New York and my traveling buddy Cheryl and I boarded our connection flight from JFK to Tampa International (where we both live). Cheryl and I were seperated for this flight, so as she made her way to the back of the plane to claim her seat, I stood staring at my “betwixt” seat midway back, my assigned center seat between a very large woman and a man wearing a black tab priest collar.

As I wedged between them, fleshy heaps of the woman (she must’ve weighed 300-lbs) oozed over into my turf and uncerimoniously shoved me into the priest, which in turn shoved him into the window. There we sat, uncomfortably smooshed together like sardines, no doubt all thinking this was going to be the longest 3-hour flight in history.

I thought it would be the nice thing to do, especially with such intimate positioning, to begin a conversation with my neighbor. So I attempted starting a convo with the woman, but she answered in monosyllables, kept her nose imbedded in the book in her ample lap and would have none of it. So I turned to the man. Hence the rub. (Pardon the pun.)

Okay, how would YOU start a conversation with a priest with whom you were smash-seated shoulder-to-shoulder? 

No clue? Me neither. So I implimented the traditional Debbie-foot-in-mouth technique. It seemed silly to ignore the obvious priest attire, so I turned to him, my mouth uncomfortably close to his ear, but there was no wiggle room, so I had to make do. “Hi there,” I said as cheerfully as I could under the circumstances. “Are you Episcopal, Anglican, or Catholic?”

Only his eyes shifted briefly as he maintained his stiff face-forward-at-all-costs posturing.

“Why, I’m a Roman Catholic priest,” he replied, perhaps a bit miffed. I detected an interesting accent in those few words, which inspired my next nosy question.

“You’re not from around here, are ya?”

“Noooo,” he answered, still staring straight ahead, “I live in Manchester, England, and before that, Ireland.” He rolled his r’s with a delightful brogue.

“Oh. Cool.” I floundered around for something else to say. “So why are you going to Tampa?”

At this outrageous breach of privacy, he attempted to turn his head toward me in flabbergastation at my gall, but when we ended up nose-to-nose, he quickly resumed his stiff, royal guard at the palace posturing. “I … (he swallowed his discomfort and began again) … I’m on holiday, going to visit my sister.”

As the plane taxied the runway for takeoff, he looked as though he desperately wanted to close the door on this unwanted conversation with a nosy woman his mother’s age, but was clueless as to how to politely extract himself. So I took advantage and introduced myself. When I showed him my newest book, his eyes bulged out of their sockets. I often see that. People can’t seem to reconcile the poised “best-selling author Debora M. Coty” on a book cover with the simple minded little country bumpkin Debbie standing before them.

It’s okay. I don’t mind having a split personality. Keeps things exciting. You never know which one will check in today.

“So what do you usually do on vacation … I mean holiday?” I brazenly asked. “What do you like to do for fun?”

“Go somewhere quiet and be alone,” he answered bluntly.

I chose to ignore the mega hint. I then helpfully suggested that he get together a group of his priest buddies and live a little – maybe form a Wild Holiday Black Collar Guys Club and go skiing, or scuba diving, or parachuting, or mountain climbing. He stroked his chin and carefully considered this prospect, a little smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Well, I can’t say I’d thought of that. Ever.”

So Father Frankie and I launched into unchartered waters – an incredible divine appointment that lasted every minute of the next three hours. We discussed everything under the sun – our favorite Beatle songs (I rebuked him when he didn’t mention Eleanor Rigby – what kind of priest wouldn’t love Eleanor Rigby with Father Mackinzie donning his socks by the door and all that???), our top five movies (we both enjoyed Mr. Holland’s Opus, which told me a lot about Father Frankie’s music-loving gentle nature), our families, our school experiences, our heartfelt concerns about the world today.

After the first half-hour or so, Father Frankie loosened his proverbial tie and began to feel comfortable with me. I could tell. He laughed a lot more and asked questions about my family and childhood, and he answered my questions about his with honesty and transparency. Then, as if predestined (and I fully believe it was!) we naturally moved into subjects of more spiritual weightiness. For over an hour, we probed one another about more than just the tenents of our respective faiths – we delved into our own personal spiritual awakenings and private relationship experiences with Christ.

He kept saying, “It all comes down to grace, doesn’t it?”

Oh. My. Goodness. YES, IT DOES! I couldn’t have agreed more. In fact, it soon became evident that we agreed on a whole lot more than we disagreed. Somewhere in those blue skies over the eastern seaboard, we bonded. A young Catholic priest and a sweetly ripened protestant grandma spiritually connected.

Father Frankie became my forever heart-friend.

About fifteen minutes before landing, Father Frankie said, “We should pray for each other, Debbie.” And so we did. Down went our heads, up went our hearts. Right to the throne of the Creator of the Universe. Father Frankie started, praying from his heart for the Almighty’s grace to fall on his strange new uninhibited friend (thankfully he didn’t use those exact words), and then I covered every aspect of his life and ministry that he’d shared with me with prayers for that same grace to abound.

And a funny thing happened as we earnestly prayed for the deepest needs and ministries of each other. I noticed that everyone around us leaned in to hear what we were saying. The lady beside me didn’t turn a page of her book for the next 15 minutes and every now and then I heard a hot tear thud on the opened pages. The woman in front of us unabashedly had her ear plastered to the space between the two seats. The two people behind us kept bumping their foreheads on our seat backs as they jockeyed for listening position.

Hey, we had CHURCH at 15,000 feet!

When the plane finally began its descent for landing, Father Frankie looked up with tears in his eyes. So did I. So did the people around us. A few blew their noses. It was THE. MOST. AMAZING. THING … EVER.

Then as we were about to exit the plane, Father Frankie began groping around his breast pockets then his pants pockets, obviously searching for something. He pulled out a tiny cellophane package containing one of those little pendants (I call them “saint medals”) that Catholics often wear around their necks. This one was the virgin Mary.

“I want you to have this, Debbie,” he said earnestly. “To remember me by.”

I choked up. “Oh, I’ll never forget you, Father Frankie. Every time I look at this, I’ll pray for you. I promise.”

He crossed his hands over his heart, smiled, closed his eyes, and thew back his head, as if in earnest praise.

And that was the final time I saw him. My lasting memory of a remarkable spirit-filled man who felt like an angel to me in the friendly skies.

And you know what? Father Frankie was right … it all comes down to grace.

So dear BFF, when have you been blessed with an unexpected profoundly spiritual meeting with someone out of the clear blue sky? Your community of heart-sisters would love to hear about it in the comments below.

P.S. Don’t forget to enter my current Release Day Giveaway for my new devo, Bless Your Heart: Daily Devotions to Warm Your Heart & Feed Your Soul – you can find all the details at my website www.DeboraCoty.com under the Freebies dropbox. The drawing for this great prize package is October 20!