Strangers on the flight

Every flight I take seems to be an adventure of sorts. As I boarded a Southwest plane to L.A. last week I saw a nun in full religious habit sitting on the aisle of an otherwise unoccupied row. Thinking this might be a good moment for ecumenical dialogue, I took the window seat. Just as I was about to strike up a conversation, another woman claimed the middle seat. I leaned back in my chair, deciding to await a future moment to chat with the sister.

I should note here that it is not unusual for me to encounter and interact with nuns. Intentionally sitting in this row was not some kind of ecumenical voyeurism on my part; in fact I was traveling to an ecumenical meeting attended by several women in religious orders whom I consider my friends. It is unusual these days to run into women wearing the religious habit, however, and I found that intriguing. I wanted to ask her about her order and perhaps why they had maintained their traditional dress.

But now there was someone sitting between us. The plane was warm, and the woman in the middle was wearing several layers. As she began shedding coats and scarves, I happened to notice the title of the book on her lap: “The Ultimate Guide to Orgasm for Women.” I also noticed that as soon as her hands were free she turned the book title-side down.

The juxtaposition of my seatmates made me smile, for obvious reasons. The woman in the middle seat had no way of knowing that I, too, was a religious professional, and I wondered how she’d feel about that. I also wondered if turning her book upside down was a reaction to the habit-clad nun, or not. It might have been. Or it might have been that she wasn’t comfortable having the book face up on her lap no matter who her seatmates were. Or it might have been inadvertent – just another movement in the Twister game of getting settled in a middle seat on a crowded airplane.

All of this got me thinking: what are the things we feel like we should hide from the pious side of ourselves, or from religious leaders or those we consider to be “holy”? What parts of our lives do we leave behind when we walk into church? Are there things that should be left outside the sanctuary? Are there topics too taboo to be discussed as aspects of our faith?

I don’t know if the nun on the aisle ever noticed the book’s title, but I saw her and the woman in the middle seat exchange pleasantries without apparent discomfort. And when the woman in the middle got up to use the restroom, I took the opportunity to chat with the nun, sharing “shop talk” about Catholic communities in the Bay Area. She turned out to be a kind and friendly woman doing interesting ministry just up the Bay from me.

When the woman in the middle seat returned from the restroom, I leaned back in my chair again - and noticed with another wry grin that the title of the chapter to which she now turned was, "The Spiritual Experience of Orgasm."