I awoke at 1:47 am but misread the time on my phone thinking it said 4:47 am. I felt like I had rested enough and knew to get up then would give me the needed time to pray, exercise, and take care of Zack, the dog, before I left for the airport. Karen was out of town, so I was on my own.

I made the bed, turned on lights, and began to move toward quiet time when I glanced at my phone. There were three hours left on my alarm. “Three hours?” I thought. “How is that possible?” I looked at the time again and this time realized it said 1:55 am. I remembered I had not checked in for my flights, so did so then. I would be in the C group on both Southwest flights, spots 21 and 20 respectively. I answered a question my business partner Andrew had texted after I had gone to sleep, turned off lights, and went back to sleep. I was unable to fall asleep so listened to scripture for an hour. Finally, shut my eyes.

The night before as I had packed I felt a prompt, “Pack a copy of your book, I have someone for you to give it to.” So, I packed Hello, My Name is Phillip, and wondered what might unfold.

For years now I have “done life” with a bonus son, Bradley. We MarcoPolo daily, meet for coffee and walks as able, pray for and encourage one another. God has given me opportunities to pour into Bradley’s life over this decade plus of knowing him and God has used Bradley in mine. This is one of God’s “gift relationships”. When traveling, one of the patterns we have developed, is for me to drop my car at his and Bryna’s house for they live five minutes from PDX. Then, he takes me to the airport.

Due to my early morning, I arrived a half hour early, around 7 am at his house. This gave time for a cup of tea, a chat, update on the fence he just finished and Bryna’s development of their garden. I ate a few of the pumpkin muffins he’d baked and we prayed together. In his prayer, he said, “Lord, arrange who Brian sits near, open up conversations, bring surprises he does not expect. Use his life to be a blessing.”

After a hug at the curb, I made my way into PDX. It was like a ghost town. Only one person was ahead of me going through security, so I made my gate in record time. I had time to work for an hour before actually sitting at the gate. I bumped into a former office mate, from Genesis Mediation, and his wife heading out to a conference, then sat down.

The boarding process began when I noticed this woman seated two seats to my left. She had a slender build, tanned skin like she had spent lots of time outdoors, straight black hair to her shoulders, a denim jacket, several necklaces and glasses. She looked in her mid fifties.

“You must also be in the C group,” I said. She laughed, smiled and said “Yes.”

“Where are you heading?” I asked her.

“Well, I’m from Turlock, and my best friend from childhood has moved from Turlock to Sonora years ago and now is moving to Iowa. So, she is meeting me in Sacramento, I’m going to help her pack the moving truck and then she and I are driving with to Iowa to help her move.”

“That sounds like the greatest adventure,” I said. “Could I backtrack a bit? Did you say you are from Turlock?”

“Yes.”

“I am too!”

“No way,” she said. “I never meet people from Turlock.”

“Me neither.”

“How old are you,” she asked me. And in that moment I couldn’t remember. I just had a birthday.

“Sixty-four,” I said, after my brief brain fog! What a strange moment to not recall my age!

“Okay. I’m 56, so we never would have met. Did you go to Turlock High School?”

“Yes. Where did you live?”

“We lived on Johnson Street right behind Richland Market.”

“Richland Market,” I mused. That’s where I tried shoplifting in 7th grade. It didn’t go well!

I told her, “We lived on Hawkeye, two blocks off of the other end of Johnson, where it T’s at Hawkeye.”

“Near Denair?” she asked me.

“No, just two blocks down, not the six miles. We actually moved from Turlock to Denair when I was 13. Have you been back to Turlock recently?”

“It’s been years for me. We moved up to Oregon in 1992. My mom moved with us. My dad died in 2009 and then my mom died in 2018. I have not been back since my dad’s funeral. It felt like I was orphaned after my mom died. I’m amazed now I can actually talk about her death without tearing up.”

“I get that. I remember that feeling of being an orphan after my mom died in 2000, which also was my last time in Turlock. It’s a strange sense of loss.

“I remember feeling the grief, sitting on the brown carpet with my back against the living room wall feeling so sad when God spoke to my heart. I heard, ‘You are not orphaned, child, you’ve been adopted and born into My family.’ It was one of those moments of grace.”

Listening, she said, “That’s a beautiful reminder.”

“My name is Brian. What’s your name?”

“Gloria,” she said.

“What a great name!” I said, “If you are ever having a bad day, do you just look in the mirror and say your name aloud to yourself and it lifts your spirits! Like saying, “Gloria a Dios!”

At this, Gloria laughed.

“So where do you live in Oregon?”

“Pacific City,” she told me.

“What a place to live. What do you do there?”

“Well, I just quit my lunch lady position.”

“Lunch lady? I bet you were a favorite!”

“Yes, I loved it. But it didn’t work. My husband leads deep sea fishing expeditions, so works all summer, and when I worked the other nine months, we couldn’t get time just off together. So now I support his work.”

“I love the thought of deep sea fishing. That must be incredible work. You must meet people from all over.”

“We do. It’s wonderful.”

“C Group 1-30 line up for boarding,” the gate agent said over the intercom, so we moved from our seats to line up.

“What number are you?”

“C-22” she said.

“Seriously? I’m C-21! So, what route are you and your friend taking across the states to Iowa?”

As we chatted in line further, and made our way onto the plane, I figured this might be the last conversation. You never know where you might end up on a Southwest flight. This flight was going out with every seat filled.

I stepped into the plane and greeted the flight attendant. He was a medium build guy, who looked weary. “How are you doing today?” I asked.

“I’m okay.”

“Thanks for being here. You have the hardest job and I appreciate you doing it.”

Brightening, he said, “Thank you, sir.”

“Seriously, I know how important you are to all of us. This is a tough assignment. Thanks for giving it your all.”

I stepped further into the aisle making my way toward a seat and heard Gloria say to him, “That’s Brian. We just met. He’s the coolest man. We are from the same hometown.” Their conversation continued but I missed the rest.

I found place for my bag in the overhead compartment and then found a seat. I had not noticed where Gloria had sat when I heard her voice in the row behind me talking about Turlock to the man next to her. “Brian,” she said over the seats, “Joel used to vacation at Turlock Lake!”

“What?” I turned around laughing, “Who would actually travel to Turlock Lake for vacation? Where did you live?”

“Glendora,” Joel said.

“Glendora to Turlock, that’s a trek!”

“We’d do it a couple of times a summer. And what was the river that ran through the area?”

I couldn’t recall the name. “We went frogging there,” he said.

“Hey great to meet you,” I told him. And turned back around, buckled up in my aisle seat next to the kind couple who spoke very little English.

In flight, Gloria handed a card saying, “Here’s my husband’s card.”

“Thank you!” I told her and then it came to mind. The book. It was for her.

So, I got out of my seat, went to the overhead, got out the book, and handed it to her. It had my card in it already.

“I felt like I was supposed to bring this book with me to give to someone,” I said. “I wrote it a couple of years ago. I put my card into it. Perhaps you and your friend can use it as a read aloud as you travel. It might work for that.”

She was grateful. And I was delighted to have found the person for whom that copy was intended.

When deplaning, I asked Joel where he was heading. “Ontario at 12:20 pm,” he said. “Me too. Well, perhaps we will see one another at the gate.”

I found some food and then worked while I waited for the next flight. Again, I was in C group and every seat was taken. I didn’t see Joel anyplace.

I boarded, and was looking for a place for my bag in the overhead and then the next empty seat. I caught the eye of a man on the aisle, signaling the center seat, which he said was open. I asked the man on the aisle, who was typing on his phone if he could let me in. When he looked up, it was Joel.

“What are the odds?” I laughed. “Seriously, Joel. I didn’t think we would see one another again.” I met Ray who had the window seat, introduced him to Joel and we buckled up and began to talk together. Joel and I shared for the entire flight.

“So,” he said, at one point, “Who is Phillip? I read the back jacket on your book and a bit on the inside.”

“Thanks for asking,” I told him.

“Is he a real person?”

“Yes,” I said, “in a sense he is.

“My wife comes from a tough background which left her soul in fragments, or parts, every part had a name, called Dissociative Identity Disorder or DID. I have spent my life getting to know the inside kids, and she has spent her life integrating, and finding wholeness.

“The first kid I met in her was Phillip. He’s autistic, on the spectrum, calms himself by repeating colors or numbers or saying ‘Hold Me.’ I loved him.

“I spent years pastoring churches and in one was leading a workshop intended to help people discover their spiritual gifts. One of the assignments was to answer the question, What’s your message for the world? And tell how would you deliver it.

It took me no time at all. My message was Every kid deserves safe adults. And I decided I would share this through a story in book form. It was then, as I prayed about this, I saw this little boy sitting in a closet, with his stuffed bear and service dog, Skye. The little boy looked up at me and said, ‘Hello, my name is Phillip.’

“Writing the book was more like listening to Phillip tell it, than creating a story.”

Joel listened intently. “That’s incredible. Thank you for letting me into your world. Are you telling your own life story in the book then?”

“The story does include parts of my story, emotionally, and parts of Karen’s as well. But not directly.

“Hers is not for me to tell, and mine was too rough for this story. But I found God using the writing in my own life. At times I would laugh out loud and at other times be weeping as I wrote. One day, as I wrote, I was weeping and Karen said, ‘Are you okay over there?’ ‘Yes,’ I told her, ‘just getting in touch with some of my own heart pain.’”

“Thanks for sharing this,” he said.

As the flight progressed, he, Ray and I talked about life, COVID, the government, faith and hope. It was a rare conversational adventure.

Gloria a Dios!

In years past, I have taken too much ownership of what I “make of” conversations. However, it is God who arranges “by chance” where I stand, sit and walk. It is God who shows up in places I least expect, who brings depth to conversations with strangers, who causes my life and yours, too, to intersect with others along life’s way. Perhaps, ours is to notice and show up. God does the rest.

Gloria a Dios!