Red Eye

I’ve never flown a Red Eye before. I now understand why. I got on the plane at 8:00 p.m. Alaskan time which is midnight my time for a six hour flight to Detroit arriving at 6:30 a.m. my time … somehow God or Delta took four hours away from my life during this trip.

In Detroit I have a one hour layover then a two-and-a-half hour flight to Atlanta. Then I have a three-and-a-half hour layover. Then I arrive in Savannah at 3:30 p.m. assuming Delta is ready when I am. An hour later I get home.

For the first time I understand why all night flights are called red eyes … That’s what you have when you get through them! I’m a morning person. Not a night owl. This is killing me.

Plus it was a long day in Anchorage and it just drug forever. Then I was in a meeting right up until I got on the plane. I had a quick talk with my home and it was rushed and home should never be rushed. But it was because work can rape your life sometimes and if you let it … it’ll rape your life all of the time.

Climbing on the plane I had a last quick talk with home and it was unsatisfying. Isn’t that a bitch? When the people, places, things that you love the most … makes you understand that you are in a different world, different time zone, rushed, and thousands of miles away.

The guy in the seat next to me wants to talk. “What are you doing in Alaska?”

So I tell him ... because it is an unpleasant leaving and I have six hours to think about it. I don’t sleep well on planes. Don’t know why … I love flying … it just is.

“Health care in the United States is crazy … we have the best care and the worst access and the highest prices,” I say.

He nods.

“So take away the buildings which drive up the costs, the frequent fliers who will go to an emergency room 77 times in one year, and take medicine to where the need is rather than the other way around and … you save a shit load of money. It is not rocket science. We’re going to make it happen.”

He nods more aggressively and clears his throat, “Christ I’ve never heard it put like that! You make sense.”

I am into my argument and keep going. “Then there is the Congress subsidized pharmaceutical industry, Lawyers who specialize in malpractice and doctors who are demigods … it’s a fucked up system … but … it’s still the best health care in the world … just the worst access.”

He orders a gin and tonic.

I put my ear buds in and listen to the major prophet Bob Marley. “No Woman, No Cry.”

Then I lean my head back on the crowded plane and sigh.

Todd, the flight attendant brings me a glass of wine … I like Todd. He has great hair.

Then I think about me. So at the Jefferson Street Baptist Chapel and at Union Mission we had tremendous successes. It’s been a bitch to watch them become less than what they were. But that was then and this is now. And I gave both everything in me.

And they took it (thank you Southern Baptist leaders and the Board Chair who chooses to remain anonymous … Jerry Rainy).

I’ve vowed never to do that again.

And I won’t.

My home is the most important thing in my life. I am so ready to be back there. I am doing good stuff but some things are … more important. I love home with everything inside of me. I hate to be away from it but I am still crazy enough to think that the world can be saved … “one neighbor at a time” is how the Talmud puts it.

And I really do believe that.

Plus I am a competitor who doesn’t like to lose. I’ve lost once. I’m not doing that again. To hell with losing!

Besides that I am not big on the past. “My life is now,” as John Mellancamp puts it … in one of the Hymns of my life. And he’s playing in Savannah soon. I want to go see him.

When I am get back to my home.