Monday 10.13.25: Arrival Part I: – Time and Space
October 15, 2025
A Camino Journal Entry by Dean Lisa Hackney-James
When people get mixed up with God, time can become strange. For those who have experienced a whirlwind romance, we know that when we fall in love, time often “stands still”; and of course this also happens when we travel. My Monday afternoon arrival at Terminal 4 in Madrid, began at O’Hare with a post-10:00pm direct flight. I was looking forward to the possibility that with a late start time after a full morning’s work at the Cathedral, along with a healthy, balanced dinner — I might actually sleep on the overnight flight. I had booked a seat as far forward in the airplane as I could, which still left me just shy of making it into the lie-flat seating. I harbored the hope that the two seats in my row that still stood empty at check in - might result in the holy grail of air travel – a three seat section all to one’s self. The departure time came and passed, and as our flight attendant was looking toward the front of the plane, a fellow traveler, a young woman, slid into the aisle seat from a full row in the center of the plane. Her conspiratorial glance at me: You won’t rat me out to the flight attendant will you?” was met by my icy stare: “You are killing my dream.” I considered telling my new row-mate that I wouldn’t make a fuss about her seat self-reassignment as long as she was happy to have me lay my head on her lap when it was time to sleep! But after just a few moments of reflection, I recognized that the unfilled spaces did not actually belong to me – and that the reshuffling of seats meant that three people would be significantly more comfortable- even if that meant that my briefly entertained vision of bootleg lie- flat seating was dashed. By contrast, a couple in the row behind me had a very different reaction when a young man came up to ask if he could take the aisle seat in their row. “No,” was their definitive (and perfectly acceptable) answer. But it was interesting to listen as they continued to process and justify their refusal. “How dare he come and try to take this seat that doesn’t belong to him?” They continued to wind each other up in their mutual indignation, until the husband announced, “I am going to take the aisle seat so that no one else tries to take it” The couple continued to process their incredulity that anyone would attempt to “jump the line” to “take something that he had not paid for” and to “sit in a seat that was not assigned to him” — all while also announcing that they would take over the aisle seat in order to protect it from people who would be so bold to sit in a seat they had not paid for… all while sitting in a seat for which they had not paid.
Which is all a long way of saying that in travel, it is not only time that bends, but our sense of space as well. Both I and the couple behind me were very quick to want to assert some sort of dominion and authority over the empty seats in our rows – even though they no more “belonged” to us than to anyone else on the plane. As it happened, the pilot held the doors until the latecomers made it aboard. Every seat was filled with its originally intended passenger, and we traveled, all of us, packed in like sardines! Nonetheless, it was a smooth flight and we all got to where we were going.The fierce tribalism that momentarily arose in Rows L and K, made me think about some of the outrage that we are currently experiencing regarding our sisters and brothers who have come to our country as immigrants or asylum seekers. In many cases, they are like those fellow late night travelers who saw the potential for a more comfortable journey, and had the gumption to ask. It made me reflect on whether God isn’t like that pilot, holding the doors for those who are struggling to make it aboard, and if we might not just get to where we are going in the end. I pray that as I travel, God will grant me generosity of spirit and grace to know what space is mine – and remember what and who belongs to God.
Arrival Part II: Reading the signs!
“Bienvenido a Madrid!” popped up on my phone as soon as we landed. “I’m waiting on the other side of the Terminal 4 Arrivals door.” These messages of welcome and assurance helped to coax me from a stance of departure into one of arrival. It also helped that these messages of welcome were coming from the person who helped plant the idea of undertaking the Camino de Santiago in the hearts and minds of several of our St James pilgrims, former parishioner Dawn Baity. I met Dawn when I first began working at St James Cathedral in the summer of 2015, and it was soon afterwards that she began to share her longing to make a pilgrimage to the cathedral that bears the same name as ours.
I must also confess that when I am traveling with my husband Alan, I rarely need to parse the signage in an airport as he has a keen mind for logistics and, well, there’s not much point in both of us doing the hard work of interpreting a novel landscape! I am a bit out of practice with the whole “critical thinking while traveling” thing. And so it was a great comfort to me to know that just on the other side of the jetway, I would be met by a local who has the language and knowledge of everything I would need to get to the city center and my hotel. What I had no way of knowing is that Terminal 4 at Madrid is like its own small city! After numerous escalator rides, endless (but beautiful) walkways on the journey to Border Control and Customs, I was not done yet.
As if Dawn sensed the potential of losing me in the abyss, my phone pinged: ”When you exit the doors, go left.” The simple instruction was helpful – except I was having trouble finding the signs towards the exit – and all of the signs I could see spoke of Terminals 1, 2 and 3. I know that I did not want to go there and was on the verge of calling Dawn when – I looked up. And there – in letters large enough to be read from space – was a giant. neon. sign – two stories high – saying “Exits.”
I began to doubt the wisdom of my being turned loose on a 500-mile route of pilgrimage where the only thing standing between me and wandering off into rural Spain, is a few dozen scallop shell shaped signs.
The further irony is that for that same Monday, I had pre-recorded a sermon titled “Read the signs!” in which Jesus is telling off “this generation” for its inability to read the signs right in front of it. My prayer is that this time of pilgrimage will remind me that the signs I seek are there – and only in need of my persistence to see them.
