Leaning Back in Our Seats

When on a long-haul flight back to Britain (which I sincerely hope I will be able to do before too much longer) I usually see three kinds of behavior when the seatbelt light is turned off. Some people push their seat back immediately with an air of entitlement. Some sit bolt upright throughout the journey. Others appear to wait until they were ready to go to sleep, and before reclining looked over the back of their seat and sometimes check the person behind, before deciding what to do.

An aircraft cabin is a microcosm, a sealed community brought together for a few hours. It is a snapshot of life, a good study of our increasingly individualized society dominated by a push for the priority of individual rights over those of a larger group. The last time I flew back home, I spent eleven hours musing on this while my legs were pinned against the reclined seat in front of me. I could almost hear the person in front thinking “I can push my seat back because I have a right to do so: if it cramps you, then pass on the pain and push your seat back into the person behind.” As the British would say ‘I'm alright Jack, so pull up the ladder'. In other words; I'm okay- never mind the rest!

Our rights of determination and ability to make independent choices and are important ones, however God didn't create a world filled with the diversity and wonder of humanity for us to ignore each other, or for us to focus only on enforcing our own individual rights to the detriment of others.

Its difficult though isn't it. I will admit it. I too reclined my seat, and by doing so probably squashed the person behind me. Thinking beyond the example of the airplane however, it is important for us to all recognize that the lives we lead and the choices we make have an impact on others. When our choice is one of whether to recline our plane seat, the impact is minor, however the crisis comes when we apply that same logic to issues that affect our wider society or global community.

There are often a whole host of reasons that we narrate in order to convince ourselves and others that we are helpless to make a choice which is mindful of the needs of others. We have all played semantics when it comes to loving our neighbor, and living our lives in ways that is mindful of others. It is easy to say “jesus says that we are to love our neighbor, but he wouldn't have said that if he had met my neighbor!”
How many times do we simply refuse to look at the effects and impacts of the decisions we make, simply because it is easier to do so?

I am sure that many of you have read in the news recently stories of huge islands of plastic waste floating around the world's oceans, and have heard estimates stating that 100 million marine animals die each year because of that pollution. Has there been an uprising of the masses in response to such a shameful failure in our stewardship of creation? Or is it easier to look the other way, regardless of the impact that our choices?

We all have different ideas about how and why we came to share this world. Perhaps we can all agree that if we see other human beings not simply as an obstacle to the full exercise of our own rights, our relationship with others can be the starting point for our own spiritual and ethical development. Let's not simply lean back in our seats regardless.

Author Info: Andrew Moore

Chaplain Andrew is the Associate Chaplain here at the Campus. Before relocating to Arizona in 2014, Andrew lived and studied in the United Kingdom. Andrew was ordained in the Anglican Church and has worked in a variety of parishes.