The Lindbergh Terminal II

800 I am still in the middle of Terminal C, right smack in front of a men's and women's restroom. Well, we have so many because the food is so plentiful.

940 Here I am at Einstein's Bagels. I made a little note of it because I ate at an Einstein's in Madison WI a few days ago and felt it was good quality for not much money. Well, at an airport you can expect to spend about 30% more on items than you would on the same items outside the airport. Perhaps the shops have to pay an exorbitant rent, but this doesn't seem fair. It is American, though, isn't it? The best country in the world? For example, I was looking at the DQ offerings, and I realized that the cheapest cone was 60% more than the cheapest cone in my Oregon town--and they don't even have a chocolate flavor here! They charge you a lot because they can charge you a lot. It is like conference hotels charging you $14.99 for a day's internet use. They could "wire" the whole hotel for probably a few hundred a month, and now they want to suck it all out of two or three customers who stay there for a few days. What gives? Best country in the world? We say we consider people and life "sacred" in America. Why do we have an inordinate desire, then, to look at each other simply as consuming bodies, on the one hand, or as cargo to be hauled, on the other? It is the "economy," of course, which is getting to be people's standard, unthinking response to almost any question one might direct to them. You never will be embarrassed if you answer almost any question, "Because of the economy" today. "Why did you wait so long to get married?" Answer: "The economy." "Why do you live in this neighborhood?" Answer: "the resale value of houses is better." "Why did you go to X university?" Answer: "Because graduates there on average make much more money." Doesn't some holy book someplace warn us about the danger of possessions, about focusing our attention on mammon rather than more spiritual pursuits? As you see, this walk is turning out to be a lot more fun than I anticipated!

1000 The Delta Club. It is one of those clubs with frosted glass doors that occasionally open when a well-coiffed person goes in our out. You wonder, of course, what goes on behind those doors, but not enough to worry about it. Yet, as I was walking down the hall, I saw that the similar United club had closed. Probably because of the economy. In any case, the note on the United club's door said that people could still visit the 40 or so United Clubs in America and the 400+ partner clubs around the world. Great. Not much consolation for the weary traveler in Minneapolis, where we happened to be, who wanted to camp in the United Lounge and deal with his boredom.

1200 Just a moving walkway faces me. So, I went around to the far right to go past a few "C" gates (still in the C Terminal) so I could number my steps. Actually, the moving walkways are interesting. They are divided into two halves. The left half says "walk," and the right half says "stand." These are the two options for people. I noted people walking on the "stand" side and vice versa, as others were forced to weave in and out. Good thing things were marked. Actually, as I looked at the walkways with those two words, I was surprisingly taken back in my mind more almost 40 years to my freshman year at Brown University in Providence RI. I was taken back then because the two words "walk, stand" reminded me of the title of a very popular book in my Christian fellowship group my freshman year. I was an Evangelical then, and I was associated at Brown with a motley collection of Evangelicals from around North America, many of whom came from church traditions that I didn't recognize. Among the Plymouth Brethren (there were three or four from that tradition), a favorite author was a guy named Watchman Nee. He was, as you might imagine, a Chinese Christian. One of the books we read together that first year (since the other students didn't want to read Hodge's Systematic Theology--my suggestion) was Nee's "Sit, Walk, Stand." Now you can see how my thoughts of Nee were triggered by the moving walkway. Nee deftly drew upon some verses from the New Testament (this may have been a study of the Book of Ephesians, now that I think of it), that used these three words to describe stages of the Christian life. First you "sit" (in the heavenly places), then you learn to "walk" (in imitation of Christ), so that ultimately you can "stand" (against he wiles of the Devil). Sit, Walk, Stand. Isn't that cute? Well, it came back to mind when I was looking down the long walkway at the Lindbergh Terminal.

1200 Still along the C Terminal, but the walk is quite dull now. To my left is the moving walkway and to my right is a wall bedecked with pictures of Minnesota. Nice farmlands. Green rolling hills. Some of the 10,000 lakes of which you may have heard. Then there was a soda/water machine against the wall. It said something to the effect "Explore Minnesota." How do you explore it? Well, naturally, by putting money in the machine to receive some soda or water. Wouldn't it be much better to explore Minnesota by having an educational option available (see above)?

If you think reading these essays takes a long time, just think about me walking the distance. One more essay will complete these thoughts.

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