The Girl By The Window

A few years ago, I spent a week in Russia working with YouthReach International mentors. Hands down one of the richest experiences of my life. If you are looking for a group to pray for or contribute to, you will not find a better candidate than Youth Reach. They look after orphans which, according to James (1:27), is what pure and undefiled religion is all about.

We flew from Atlanta to New York to Frankfurt to Moscow, then to our final destination – Novosibirsk, Siberia. Each time we changed planes, the condition of the equipment we were flying . . . depreciated. The Atlanta plane was clean and shiny and still had that new-plane smell.

We picked up a nice certified pre-owned model in New York. Sturdy. Reliable. More than airworthy enough to take us over the Atlantic. Out of Frankfurt, we took a solid early ‘90’s model. It wasn’t well appointed, but the gate agent told us it had been piloted by a little old lady who only drove it to church on Sundays.

The plane we took from Moscow to Novosibirsk, though. For one thing, we didn’t walk down an enclosed concourse to board. We took a bus to the far end of the tarmac and climbed up one of those metal roll-away stair cases, the kind they use at Home Depot to put that one part you need to repair your weed-eater completely out of reach.  And since the plane was Russian, like everything Russian – the cars, the trains, the buildings – it looked stern. Almost disapproving. Like it knew what you were thinking and didn’t like it one little bit.

When we walked down the center aisle, we felt the floor give beneath our feet. But when the pilot turned the key, the engines cranked and after what seemed like a very long runout, we lifted off. I was seated on the aisle, an empty seat to my right. And beyond that, next to the window, was a young woman. She looked to be in her early 20’s.

I read for a bit, tried to nap, couldn’t sleep, read some more. The young woman beside me, though, appeared to be in a constant state of discomfort. She shifted in her seat, fought with her purse, and mumbled things in Russian I am certain are not fit for a family friendly blog. Finally, about two hours into the four hour flight, she abruptly turned to me and, in perfect but accented English, said, “Do you mind if I sit in the center seat. There is a draft by this window and I am freezing.”

I’m no avionics expert, but a draft in a pressurized cabin – flying at 30,000 feet over frozen tundra in February just along the border of Kazakhstan – seemed at least inappropriate. I put that thought out of my mind and said, “Of course, please.” Then I offered her my coat which she took, though she seemed surprised by the gesture.

I asked, “Why didn’t you say something sooner?”

She answered, “Where I come from people do not help. So you do not ask.”

Then she said, “I was just in New York and people were so nice.”

“Wait,” I said. “You mean New York, New York? And they were nice? Really?”

“Yes,” she said. “Very.”

“Next time you’re in the States,” I said, “you must visit us in the South.”

Yesterday, I judged a bicyclist to be a jerk because despite the fact that he had four feet of pavement on the trail we shared, he did not move an inch, forcing me to step off the path into the weeds. Maybe he is a jerk. Or maybe he was lost in thought trying to make sense of some awful family wreckage, bereaving a loved one’s passing or trying to figure some way to save his marriage. Who knows?

And that’s kind of the point. We do not know what’s going on inside people. We assign meaning to their actions based on our past experiences, forgetting that their past – and their present – is a huge factor in the relational transactions we share.

The young woman by the window assumed I would be as unwilling to help as the people in her past had been. I assumed the guy on the path was a thoughtless jerk. Both of us made judgments without the benefit of all the information.

And here’s the part that will probably be as hard to read as it was to write: our assumptions about others say more about us than they say about them.

This week, I’m going to try – try – to extend to others the same grace I hope they extend to me. I don’t want them to calculate my character without factoring in all the variables. I hope they don’t jump to conclusions without considering all the evidence.

To tell the truth, even after all the variables are ciphered in, even after all the evidence is weighed, we still need to respond to each other with grace. That’s what grace is anyway – giving each other what we need, not what we deserve.