I rather wearily boarded my plane home to Louisville late last night. I had spent the weekend in Boston, where I surprised David for his birthday and visited classes at Boston University’s School of Theology. The weekend itself was fantastic, the denouement rather gloomy as I once again passed through the lifeless gate of the metal detector into what has become my Louisville exile. I was perhaps even more discouraged by the comatose state of my cell phone (yes, this is my 5th in 3 years —Hagar the Cell Phone did not die, but I replaced her with an upgrade in December that is causing me trouble right now). Combine all that with the new flying phobia I mentioned a few weeks ago, and I can’t say I was all that cheerful.

I knew the flight attendant was a bit, um, different when I boarded. As he welcomed each of us on the little regional jet, he solemnly bowed in the Japanese style. The sounds of Enya played in the background. I was in seat 1A this time, right beside the flight attendant galley and behind the main cockpit door, giving me plenty of unusual noises to obsess over during taxi and takeoff. And I hate Enya.

But flight attendant Paul was unflappable. He apologized that I would have to miss the safety instructions because of my seating, and I quickly heard why—apparently, Paul was quite the crowd-pleaser further back for his lip-sync version of that obnoxious “soothing lady” voice instruction they always play when they’re talking about what to do if the plane goes down. And before I could settle into my black ruminations about the state of the aircraft, Paul was leaning forward in the jumpseat, elbows on his knees, looking at me expectantly as his takeoff conversation buddy. I was just too polite to ignore him.

As we waited to takeoff, Paul and I talked about churches. Turns out he had once been a Pentecostal too, like me, but had left his church because of what we agreed was a “cult of personality” around the pastor that some churches exhibited. The Presbyterians and Episcopalians, he commented, were two groups that had no trouble with their parishioners being wealthy. But he moved on too quickly for me to correct him about there being lots of Presbyterians in Boston.

Soon we were in the air, with relatively little hand-wringing on my part. How could I get too worried? The wheels had barely left the runway when Paul was out of his seat, bouncing around to get his drink cart.

Now, if you’re ever looking for a place to sit on those little regional jets, I would not recommend seat 1A. It is cold up there!! I remarked on this to Paul as he came back with the drinks—and it was then that he did something I’ve never seen a flight attendant do in my many travels. He turned around and began rummaging through his closet. I thought, “Oh, how nice—he has a blanket back there he’s going to give me.” But it was his own coat that he pulled out and gently laid on top of me. And I dozed off to dreamland, feeling more cozy and safe than I have in many an airline mile.

Sometimes we don’t think it is worth our time to do little things for others. We get so wrapped up in our own lives, our own paranoias, our own problems, that it is all we can do to just get through the day without tearing anyone’s eyes out. Yet how many people can we impact with simple acts of kindness? How many days—or lives—can be changed when we look beyond our own isolated silos and remember our interconnectedness to one another? How many opportunities do we have to embody the peace and presence of Christ in small gestures?

So thanks, Paul the US Airways Flight Attendant, for the coat. And thanks, God, for manifesting your love not only through the people closest to me, but sometimes through perfect strangers.

“Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.” --Hebrews 13:2

Kelsey