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Several religious texts available for public use inside the chapel at the Tampa International Airport in Tampa, Fla., Dec. 10, 2018
Photo:
Octavio Jones/Zuma Press
Chicago
I’d heard the announcements hundreds of times in Chicago airports: “In 15 minutes a nondemoninational worship service will begin in the airport’s chapel. . . . Everyone is welcome.” I’d never taken the disembodied voice up on the offer; airports aren’t places to tarry. But in this summer of cancellations and long delays, on a recent Sunday at Midway International Airport I heard the voice and decided to drop in.
The chapel was in Concourse C. It took me a few minutes to figure out it wasn’t on the main floor, but down a short hall and up an elevator. One level above the boarding gates, I found the chapel door, a few yards from a Chicago Police Department substation office.
In the chapel, a pastor was introducing himself and his wife as Dave and
Evelyn Pearson.
He wore a laminated green security badge. At Midway, some 20 million travelers a year pass through the concourses. On this Sunday there were five of us in the seats of the chapel.
It was a rather spartan setting, with more the feel of a conference room than a church. Mr. Pearson stood at a lectern with a 1980s-style boom box behind it, in case any of the volunteer clergy who rotate in and out of the chapel chose to include music in their services.
Mr. Pearson welcomed us and assured us that he wouldn’t take offense if anyone had to get up and leave to make a flight. He said the chapel was intended as a place of comfort, and asked if anyone present had family members for whom they wished him, and us, to say prayers. Two did.
The pastor led the group in the Lord’s Prayer and the 23rd Psalm. The acoustics weren’t perfect; as Mr. Pearson recited the prayers, we could hear standard airport announcements from the boarding level beneath us.
At one point Mr. Pearson referred obliquely to the sadness, violence, discord and divisiveness that have become a constant part of the nation’s life. He said his wish wasn’t a matter of politics: “Lord, I’m not asking you to take sides. I’m asking you to take over.”
He had promised to keep the service to 30 minutes, and he did. We returned to the jammed, noisy main terminal to make our ways to our respective gates. At a bar and grill named for the late Chicago Cubs broadcaster Harry Caray, 53 diners filled the seats. Ten times as many as had been up in the chapel, but the bar was more prominent and visible, and there was a ballgame on each of the 18 flat-screen television sets.
Mr. Greene’s books include “Once Upon a Town: The Miracle of the North Platte Canteen.”
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Appeared in the September 1, 2022, print edition.
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