Interesting Conversations

On Tuesday while I was flying back here to Ohio, I boarded the plane in Albuquerque and it turned out that a very interesting woman was sitting next to me. Now, I must preface this with the understanding that I do in fact have something tatooed across my forehead in invisible ink that says please tell me your life story or what you are having problems with. I know this and some times it is very apparent to me. So this woman sitting next to me is obviously frustrated. She’s later getting on the plane, there is no room for her luggage in the bin over our seats nor the bins immediately around us, she tries shoving the bag under the seat but of course it doesn’t fit... finally a flight attendant comes to her rescue and tells her that she has room for the bag in one of the bins in the back of the plane. The woman yanks and pulls before finally extracting her bag from under the seat and then hands it off to the flight attendant. Almost as soon as she sits down, she tells me that I’ve won the lottery (in reference to her sitting next to me, I’m sure she was being sarcastic) and immediately starts to unload everything which instigated an interesting conversation.

The first thing she did was hold up a huge water bottle two-thirds full of water. She then tells me that the water in the bottle is holy water from a church - and that they radiated it... now it’s ruined she tells me. Ok. She goes on, I hate this airport. “The guy at security told me I could either radiate it or drink it. No other choice. So I sent it through.” She continues, “I’m an energy healer and the radiation ruined the energy in the water. It’s ruined!”

That’s a new way of looking at holy water for me. The entire time she’s telling me this, I’m wondering how I can go back to reading my book. I still have a headache and I’m tired, I’m not feeling particularly... can’t I just be left alone? But I feel the need to respond to the idea that the water is ruined. So after she goes on about how she doesn’t know if I’m a Christian or not (she must not have looked at my “Got Christ?” shirt that I was wearing) but that it is definitely good stuff, I respond. I ask her if she really thinks the water is ruined - duh, didn’t she just say that an hour ago? So then I respond with, “I don’t think the water is ruined. I believe in a God that is more powerful than anything, including x-ray machines.” After I say that, she grabs the bottle and says, “I guess it isn’t ruined, it still has good energy, I can feel it.”

I don’t know... I really wasn’t feeling terribly well and only wanted to either read or close my eyes and rest. Now this lady is telling me everything that has gone wrong and that she is an energy healer. I’m not sure I believe in that sort of thing... and now that I’ve relayed a point of grace about the holy water, she changes her mind, it isn’t ruined anymore, it still has good energy, she can feel it. I want to know that if she can feel it, than why didn’t she feel it before and come to that conclusion on her own?

This is probably not my most shining example of an internal conversation. But it is very human. But so is my desire to question everything. The second I thought how crappy the thought of an energy healer is, I also thought about how crazy the idea of God seems some days of the week. I’m still a little leary about the whole energy healer thing...

I eventually did get back to my book, but not before the woman unloaded some more on me. It was alright though... it also helped remind me that you can spread the gospel and impart a word of grace in any place.

Kate