Reverse rapture

My heart sank when I learned in my twenties that I ought to believe that one day the righteous, the group to which I aspired to belong, were one day to suddenly be removed from Earth to some other place to be with the Lord. Not fair, I thought–all those righteous deeds, including being a good steward of this beautiful earth, and the cleansing of the blood of the Messiah and all, and we’d have to leave it to the damned evil doers?  I was to picture flames and destruction consuming the earth, transforming it into some kind of hell, good farmers and women grinding grain taken to heaven just in time, evil farmers and evil women grinding grain left behind. “One taken and the other left,” (Matt 24:40-41) with no warning.

Then I became suspicious. Despite the raging success of such popular Christian fiction as the Left Behind books and movie series (which, to be fair, I probably should read), there were rumors that maybe they had it backwards. Very quiet rumors, very hopeful but apparently subversive. Never from the pulpit. There was only the debate about whether the righteous would escape the tribulation beforehand (pre-tribulation rapture) or have to endure some shortened version of it (post-trib). But technically there were fifty-fifty odds of it being the righteous or the wicked that would be taken (didn’t say which), and maybe the Bible didn’t actually teach the former. Maybe someone who had no sense of responsibility toward the earth, no qualms about humans exploiting it to within an inch of its sustainable life, just assumed we would want to, and get to, start fresh somewhere nice.

(I will say that none of the congregations to which I have belonged over the years made any fuss about such things in my presence, but it is a rather intriguing subject, and not so straightforward as some make it out to be.)

In C.S. Lewis’s The Last Battle (Narnia Chronicles), there is a beautiful vision of the kind of ending I hope to see one day. Have you read it? Beforehand there is tribulation, and judgment (separation of those who have served the good, life-giving Aslan, knowingly or unknowingly, and those who have served the devouring, violent god Tash–each goes to be with their god), and then the servants of the king pass through to a restored Narnia which is somehow more real, more Narnia, more true, pure, and in harmony with its inhabitants. The old Narnia, the precursor to the real, perishes in fire and water at the end of time. There is a sense of new, interesting life and purpose in the new Narnia, not quiet, musical retirement. Those who have entered have restored health and strength, and opportunity to be useful, to keep on becoming better and more worthy of close fellowship with the king.

There’s a lot more to the story that also rings true, and I hope you are young enough or old enough to read it if you haven’t already (I don’t think Hollywood will be able to deal with these deeper aspects of the story, any more than it did with the elves or Tom Bombadil in Lord of the Rings). Such a vision seems a possibility more worthy of the creator who cares for every sparrow than an abandonment of the creation as if it were somehow just a backdrop to the story of humanity.

No doubt someone will eventually comment on my faulty End Times theology, my tendency to believe only what makes sense to me and resonates with my experience instead of taking the Bible literally and trusting certain authoritative leaders to do the interpreting for me. Maybe someone will warn me of the spiritual danger I am in, exhort me to accept true doctrine once again and attend an approved End Times seminar series as soon as possible, so I can be ready for the Rapture. I do want to be ready, but since Jesus said no one will know the day and the hour and that the best I can do is be about his business doing good, making sure the vines are pruned and the servants have fair wages and so on, I’ll aim for that.

I close with one of my favorite psalms. I love the part about the wagon tracks.

Psalm 65
(English Standard Version)

For the choir director: A song. A psalm of David.

Praise is due to you,O God, in Zion,
and to you shall vows be performed.
O you who hear prayer,
to you shall all flesh come.
When iniquities prevail against me,
you atone for our transgressions.
Blessed is the one you choose and bring near,
to dwell in your courts!
We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house,
the holiness of your temple!

By awesome deeds you answer us with righteousness,
O God of our salvation,
the hope of all the ends of the earth
and of the farthest seas;
the one who by his strength established the mountains,
being girded with might;
who stills the roaring of the seas,
the roaring of their waves,
the tumult of the peoples,
so that those who dwell at the ends of the earth are in awe at your signs.
You make the going out of the morning and the evening to shout for joy.

You visit the earth and water it;
you greatly enrich it;
the river of God is full of water;
you provide their grain,
for so you have prepared it.
You water its furrows abundantly,
settling its ridges,
softening it with showers,
and blessing its growth.
You crown the year with your bounty;
your wagon tracks overflow with abundance.
The pastures of the wilderness overflow,
the hills gird themselves with joy,
the meadows clothe themselves with flocks,
the valleys deck themselves with grain,
they shout and sing together for joy.

 

November 29th, 2013: Happy Buy Nothing Day!

Not sure how to embed, but here’s the link to Adbusters.

 

Welcome to Eaarth

I’m reading Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet by Bill McKibben, getting an update on how our planet’s systems are already on Tilt, already irreversibly different, while we muddle around, send our leaders jet-setting to climate change initiative conferences, reading in the papers how they fret and fuss about who can and will pay the price of even responding to present crises, let alone preparing for the next. Taking notes, hoping to have an influence in my circles. I am floored, thinking about it all, asking what do we do, and how do we get everyone on board faster, faster? How do we act justly toward the poor countries who are most affected by our voracious consumption, our addiction to growth, our willful blindness to the laws of physics and ecology? Quickly, before mammalian survival instincts take over and the higher human values of justice and equity get trampled? Quickly, while “the preservation of the American way of life” is still positively correlated to preserving lives in other places? How do we divert our tremendous drive and creativity away from making junk and trouble to solving our problems and creating a new paradigm for our culture?

Between chapters I am aware of the irony, the hypocrisy as I drive one son forty miles to a swim meet and back (and out to a coffee shop for my treat between events). And why is it the trucks and SUVs seem to be the most likely to be going ten mph over the speed limit, anyway? Because SUVs and new pickups have such a smooth, quiet ride, drivers can’t hear the pistons pumping, the engine laboring, so it feels like nothing at all to press down the pedal, can still hear Pink Floyd crystal clear on the Bluetooth audio. Me in my ’93 Accord, I can feel and hear that gas burning (and some of the oil, too), and it makes me want to cut down. Lord, save us from too much luxury, insulation from realities we need to know about.

How about a series of training seminars for auto salespeople, helping them realize it’s not responsible to sell big machinery to people for commuting down the freeway, getting them to seed the whole auto-buying clientele with the idea that we all want to power down. FERC warning labels on low fuel economy vehicles too, like cigarettes, if people insist on buying them. Only takes ten per cent to believe it, and it’ll spread like wildfire (whether it’s true or not–see the article). Sell gas-guzzlers by permit only, with special controls on weekly mileage and speed. Discounts for shared ownership in the New Sharing Economy. Neighborhoods, through the new online neighborhood social networks, for example, organize the ownership or lease and booking of the heavy duty truck for hauling recyclable metals to the recyclers, prunings to the community composting site, a load of lumber to the building site.

The next day I drive my son a few miles down the freeway to early practice, and go back and pick him up an hour and a half later. I go for a run before breakfast lest I become too flabby and weak from living my sedentary lifestyle. Then I drive my son to the bus stop because our bikes were stolen, and so he can avoid straining his back carrying heavy textbooks and swim gear.  My husband drives our daughter to her school because she stayed up late doing homework after procrastinating all afternoon with her smart phone. Then he drives alone sixty-five miles to work for the week. At noon I drive my younger son to Phys. Ed. class so he can stay in shape too, and I take another walk to drop off a check to pay for my weekly exercise class. At five I drive a few miles to the high school athletics meeting, where we hear about the positive life lessons the kids learn in high school sports, and find out about all the swim meets we’ll all be driving to and watching in nice heated indoor pools.

Time to get more serious about using my bike, when I’m not hauling bulk groceries or working through my checklist that takes me all over town, or picking up kids, dropping off kids. Time to stop ferrying the kids around to everything, time to say “Sorry, here’s the bus schedule.” I’ve been trying to resist that pressure, explaining why I’m trying to limit driving, why when my teens get their licenses, they won’t automatically get a spare car and not have to take the bus.

As I contemplate the eventual spiraling down of the oil-powered economy, the abandonment of extraneous or dilapidated and unfixable facilities and infrastructure and wasteful habits in order to focus on basic needs, I’m thinking, what are essential skills, knowledge, and attitudes that have value in all times and places? Getting adequate food – fishing, hunting and gathering, food storage, preservation and preparation. Getting clothed and sheltered – making coverings and dwellings from local materials. Having fun together/building community-music, poetry, story telling, dance, service. Staying healthy – first aid, medicine, nutrition, safety, defense, peace making. Parenting – raising children to be content and capable. Teaching. Writing. Woodworking, ceramics, metal work, fiber craft. Natural history. Spiritual guidance. Teamwork, leadership, respect. And we will need plenty of knowledge and wisdom and we might not be able to Google it, so I won’t get rid of my books just yet.

“Like someone lost in the woods, we need to stop running, sit down, see what’s in our pockets that might be of use, and start figuring out what steps to take.”

I listen to the news, and now I have enhanced filtration that makes a mockery of the economic policies explained by politicians there. The push for more oil pipeline and rail transport, more new overseas markets, moving to an even more global economy. In TV it’s ads for new cars, Black Friday specials on housewares, sports gear, toys and games, the newest gadgets. The jingle bells all ring hollow. Time to retrain everyone, time to reform the whole system–what we produce, what we promote, what we sell, to whom we sell it. In a positive way, of course, not through pressure and panic. Sharing the vision–we have to work together to figure out our common bottom line and make sure it all adds up to something positive.

This year at the family Thanksgiving I took charge of the compostables and recyclables for the first time. I live in a green city and have extra space in my bins, and my in-laws live in a non-recycling, non-composting kind of county, so it was something I could do to help. First year I stepped up to do that–leftover food, paper cups, aluminum foil, and plastic water bottles (Grandma needed to simplify on dishwashing this year–good for her) were all going into the same bin and I swooped in to quietly separate them. I had never done this before, been reluctant after in the past being what I would call undiplomatic about my green habits when I first came into my husband’s family. I was seen as extreme then. But it went very smoothly with a minimum of digging in the garbage, and the cat got her treats set aside too. Garbage reduced by two thirds.

I’m concerned, yes–very, but I’m looking forward to making myself useful on this tough, new planet.

 

Happy Thanksgiving Day!

 

Bowling team member accused of assault and battery

Typical. We all know how bowlers are, don’t we? It just goes to show.

Or,

Surfer Jailed for Drunk and Disorderly Conduct

Lacrosse Players Convicted of Rape

The question I’m trying to raise is why specify sport, except where the perpetrator is a world-renowned athlete, or the crime is directly connected with the sport, as in,

Golfer Clubs Hamster to Death,

Rugby Players Attack Opposing Team, or

Boxer Throws Female Admirer Out of the Ring, Cracking Ribs

Because headline writers count on raising reader interest by playing on stereotypes, so we can feel good about having them confirmed by an independent source.

Here are some real headlines I found, after I got fed one too many radio reports on football players’ crimes. Do these real headlines sound more plausible? Or do you wonder, like I do, what football has to do with the story at all?

High School Football Players Accused of Sexual Assault Make 1rst Court Appearance

Kishawn Tre Holmes & Byron Holt Jr., High School Football Players, Charged In Sexual Assault Case

Steubenville High School Football Players Convicted of Rape are Sentenced

3 Oregon State Football Players Jailed on Counts of 3rd Degree Assault, Disorderly Conduct

Football players are disproportionately represented in such headlines, from what I can tell.

If someone wants to show, with adequate data and good scientific analysis, that being a football player is associated with a predisposition toward violent crime more than any other sport (or along with, say, tennis or curling), they can go ahead and try. But it’s unfair to associate, without explanation, a crime with a sport, as it is with a race or nationality, just for effect. At the very least journalists should consider the feelings of the many upstanding and law-abiding football players (and their relatives and friends) among their readership.

So how about being fair and specifying all sports and leisure pursuits in crime headlines, and see what interesting reactions we can create in readers’ minds?

Diver Smothers Aunt in Fit of Rage

Hurdler Jumps Ship with Smuggled Cocaine

Head of Quilting Association Hijacks Small Aircraft

 

“I thought it was tomorrow.” said one. “No, it’s today,” said the other. “Oh yeah!” said the first. “I forgot that yesterday, today was tomorrow!”

 

“If he sees us, he’ll want to come home”

A mother stops by the school office with her two young children to drop something off. The little toddler on her hip asks about his brother—“Can we go see him?”

“ No, we don’t want him to see us,” the mom explains.

“Why don’t we want him to see us? The little sister pipes in.

“Because if he sees us, he’ll want to come home.” Striding quickly to the front door, she smiles at me on the way past.

 

 

“One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love.” ― Sophocles

I’ve been thinking about pain lately, physical pain–how it is that some folks live with it every day, how they cope, how they recharge, power through, scrape through, get dragged down. Can’t go over it, can’t go under it, gotta go through the door? Excellent pain meds to be had nowadays, but what are the costs of that regimen? Money shelled out, one’s day structured around the pills and their side effects. An awareness that off with the pain goes, perhaps, valuable sensitivities? Even pain that is short term–a few weeks of surgery recovery or healing from injury maybe–makes a mark.

My husband’s dad, for the little time I knew him before his son and I married, was in continual pain and nausea. When asked how he was doing, his wife would say, “There are good days, and there are bad days.” The only answer she had that was short, true, and not too excruciating to utter. Even with a morphine “cocktail” fed through a stomach tube, it was breaking him down, breaking his strong will. But in the end this slow death was a kind of purification for him, and, my husband said, he died clean, a new man. It took his wife years to recover from the grief not only of losing him, but (I think) even more from her self sacrifice in taking care of him, crotchety as he was, not a good patient, from what I gather between the lines, and she so full of mercy and always one to give the benefit of the doubt. Yet how could years of pain and nausea, deteriorating ability to communicate, nourish himself, move around, bring out the best in him?

My grandmother had debilitating arthritis, and lived with us in the winter, must have been in pain most of the time, though she was on various meds and had some relief from certain shots. She lived between her chair by the wood stove, under her electric blanket in the back bedroom, and the dinner table, using her walker, and eventually a wheelchair, to get from one place to the other. She was uncomplaining, mentally sharp, but I never talked to her about her situation and experiences of pain.

I haven’t had much pain. I haven’t sprained an ankle in twenty-two years, had stitches in twenty-four, never experienced any long illnesses, severe burns, surgeries, pinched nerves, slipped disks, or real migraines. Just a strained muscle here or there, a few bumps and burns. Even through the process of renovating our house, during which I was very aware of the many chances of injury with tools, climbing, heavy lifting, and so on, I only had a few scrapes, aches that eventually went away, and daily fatigue to contend with, made almost pleasant by the experiences of progress and accomplishments that resulted from my work. Yes, I am very thankful.

The other day, though, I was running with my dog when he suddenly lunged at another dog while I was off balance, and I fell and slid along the gravel trail, scraping and bruising my knee, hands and face. At first I didn’t move, just tried to catch my breath, let go of the shock, see if anything was going to hurt badly, and try not start blubbering. The two women with the other dog managed my dog and came to help me. I don’t remember their faces now, just that when one asked if I was okay, I said, ” I will be, I just have to recover myself.” But it was as if many things had jolted loose, I had a lump in my throat and was floundering, but wanting to be alone in my weakness. Though the women reached out, I tried to let them go with an assurance I was okay. One said she’d just make sure, and I made moves to get up, thanked them and they went on their way. It was mercifully quiet on the trail, no one else came along, so I could hobble along and talk myself through getting home the mile and a half back the way I came. My wrists hurt, my knee didn’t want to take much weight, and my whole body seemed to be experiencing microscopic reverberations through my core and limbs. “It’s okay, you’re okay, nothing broken. People fall down, you get back up, shake it off.” But I was till fighting the lump in my throat and the urge to crawl off somewhere and cry. Disproportionately to the physical side of the pain. The fall somehow shifted the weight of my inner burdens and I was starting to tip.

Maybe that would have been a good thing, letting out any unrelated grief at the same time. But I was out on the trail, getting chilled and had to keep moving. By the time I got home I was calmer, able to share with my kids what had happened and a bit of my reaction. They were interested and sympathetic. I went off to shower and get some bandaids to cover up the scrapes.

Such a minor incident, and I’m ashamed of myself for my lack of fortitude. But I’m no bike racer and I just don’t experience impact like that in daily life. The closest to it has been getting cracked in the shins or bumped on some other body part by a child or hard toy, which I also find jolting. Yet I have a high pain tolerance and am not squeamish. I can keep my head in most accidents, assess the damage, apply first aid, keep the patient calm and distracted, take charge. Blood doesn’t bother me, I’m not big on pain meds for myself. Same with sickness-I just sleep it off quietly and mostly keep up my spirits as long as I’m not down too long.

But it was all too sudden, and then the pain didn’t go away. My hands looked and felt like I’d been in a fist fight, and my knee was tight and painful. My face and jaw were marked and tender. And I kept thinking about how other people go through so much more, and I’d like to talk to them, see if they sometimes feel all lost, or so weary they can’t carry on.

When I was a teen I came up with the theory that there was only so much pain in the world, so if I was hurting I could be thankful someone else didn’t have to. Gave my pain a redemptive angle. Besides just “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” I don’t buy that dualism–what doesn’t kill you can also dehumanize you. I do understand the “no pain, no gain,” idea, but that’s about choice, pushing oneself, training. I’m thinking of hurt and injury, illness and deterioration.

I have a lot to learn. Pain, aging, and the inevitable walk toward the end of life. Not that I’m having morbid thoughts, or feeling particularly old, but I do believe in facing facts. Will I learn to roll with the punches, balance the agony and the ecstasy graciously, and will anyone see it as worthwhile to spend their Tuesdays with me as I go?

How do you handle pain, or have you seen pain affect others? What use is pain, anyway?

 

Would you use a sledgehammer to tack things onto a bulletin board?

Saw my daughter off this morning to her high state swimming championships, with plenty of healthy carbs, meal and mall money, some Halloween candy for afterwards, presents for teammates, and a promise to bring her Fastskin when it arrives today. Then went out to the driveway and sold a loft bed we have outgrown to a Craigslist respondent, a comfortable woman baker with a five-year old ready to climb the ladder.

Breakfast was cereal and milk with walnuts, chopped peaches and dried cranberries, then I made soymilk lattes for myself and my eldest son in local pottery mugs. I had to photograph him, he looked so collegiate with his black-rimmed glasses, backpack and cup of coffee. We looked at the photo on the playback screen and agreed that he reminded us of Ernie, which led to some Sesame Street online videos such as the Mad Song, one of my favorites, and then Pete Seeger and on to EmmyLou Harris, Johnny Cash, Neil Young, Willie Nelson, and Sarah McLaughlin. Some beautiful stuff, if you care to listen.

This weekend I put together an organized chart of my youngest son’s entire year, with readings, assignments, read-alouds, memory work, science studies and experiments.  It’s a good plan, and includes room to study marine life as my son requested, and world history starting in the Middle Ages. But already we’ve ditched a whole year of so-called vocab work in the Language Arts category. I opened the Wordly Wise book today where my son had left off last year and felt it was so much busy work rather than meaningful vocabulary learning. I guess I just figured this was my last chance to make the book useful for the money. We skipped the crossword and decided that instead of filling in the blanks of the sentences with the appropriate word from the list, we’d choose words that were interesting to us. The following sentences resulted:

He loves flowers and wants to be a _______ when he leaves school. (deer)
Are you a ____________, or do you own your house? (squatter)
The nun who teaches first grade wears a _________________. (black ninja outfit)
A plate looked at from the side seems ___________. (evil)

Instead of going through that in the normal way, I’ll count on him reading a lot, listening to older people talk, and using me as a walking dictionary, which worked just fine for my other children, who had no formal vocabulary lessons. My oldest son, who has expressed the view that he is not good with words, still enjoys building convoluted and nonstandard ways to say things, just for the fun of it. Instead of “Mom, I need help with this,” he might say, “Mother, would you be so kind as to assist my efforts in my present attempt to articulate a thesis statement?” A skill, to be sure, but he is also sitting under my humble tutelage in writing down the bones.

A series of language arts books we are sad to leave behind is the Explode the Code series. One can take the assignments as they are to fortify spelling, handwriting, vocabulary and reading skills, but on top of that, they are funny in a funky way, and we usually enjoy a brain-refreshing laugh or two in reading them together. There are lots of challenging yes or no questions such as:

Does a robin wear large earrings to go to a wedding?
Can you talk to a pear-shaped goblin sitting in a bathtub?
Will you want to join the army when you are eighteen years old?
If your luggage is overweight, will the pilot throw it off the plane?

More than once we’ve just leafed through and read for a laugh. I wish more curriculum materials could lighten us up like that (without resorting to trying to be either cool or gross).

Twice a week we go over to the local public school for P.E., where he is now. I am in my allotted spot on the pew in the entry, where a sign says leadership is about being “RESPECTFUL, RESPONSIBLE, and SAFE!” How about CREATIVE? COURAGEOUS? TRUTHFUL?

Silvery blue bay water stretches to the islands in the west, framed by the winter sky, a few clouds, bare branches reaching past the horizon. High pitched tumult of children’s voices in play drifts up from the play lot I cannot see from my perch. The Washington State flag has wrapped partially around the pole below the Stars and Stripes. The sudden, sharp jangle of the school bell marks the end of recess, changes the pitch of the students’ voices, and a playground monitor croaks through a loudspeaker with line-up instructions. Why the alarm? Do alarmed children submit more easily to authority? In the school my daughters attended in Jerusalem (the real Jerusalem), the “bell” was classical music. Once I even heard Bach’s “Jesus, Joy of Man’s Desiring.”Alarms are common enough in Jerusalem, I suppose, hence the classical music.

How about playing Neil Young for class changes, just to see what would happen?

 

Could it be the beginning of the end, the revenge of Gaia, the end time for all God’s children?

Through the mental, metaphysical philosophical fog, which comes and goes–not too heavy right now, but how would I know?–I’m seeing a pattern. Something about the dominant culture hurdling headlong into something, dragging almost everyone else with it, to the edge of a precipice, or to a suddenly downward slippery slope. And I’ve lost the words to say what’s wrong, lost the right or ability to speak about it to anyone around me. Everything seems to be moving too fast for me–the effect of three of my children hurdling through their teen years? And I feel I’ve missed my opportunity, maybe I should have done more inculcating, more world view training, more something, so they’d all really be somebody, and not just conform to some warm norm that won’t get them through the storm. Not that I’m really concerned that they won’t be free enough thinkers, but they are heavily marketed, and I hope they can see through and walk the narrow, rocky road that leads to life.

It’s not just about global climate change, water crisis, peak oil, species destruction, accelerated genetic contamination, overpopulation, mass migrations, though it’s all of those too. Maybe something about how so few of us are engaged in looking deeply into anything, there are so many glossy, high-def, shining, interactive mobile screens to surf us along gently, even without the thrill and certainly without the skill of real surfing. Shallow and distracted. Yet not minoring on depth in order to major on breadth, either, more like drift, distraction, dullness.

But that’s just the consumer end, because there are real individual folks behind it all, creating that code, driving those machines, inserting those genes. Surely they still have their wits about them, are capable of purpose, vision, idealism. But not like it used to be, when a few tycoons, geniuses, think tanks, mavericks would move in a new direction and change things forever. When it was just a matter of making sure enough of those powerful and influential people had our ear, or even better, had a heart of wisdom. Now culture molding, revolution, not to use the term breakthrough, comes through a kind of oozing, oily wave pushed by trillions of individual molecules way back who are just in a tide, and the push-pull could be the moon for how easily influenced it is. This kind of change has a life of its own. Maybe the driver is something along the lines of economic growth. And the voices raised against that drive have been pretty much ignored by the dominant culture since they started to squeak against it. Back in ’92 at UBC I heard David Suzuki call not only for reduction in growth, but reversal, or there would be severe consequences. I heard him again last year on CBC still saying the same thing. But there’s a disease that affects those who get into political office, or that they must have at least in some degree in order to win office in the first place, which is, believing that a nation’s economic growth is a mark of its success (not to say sustainability). No public official or other advertising-dependent entity would be caught dead saying publicly “Spend Less,” as does the  Advent Conspiracy , as one of its four defining statements.

This oozing toward self destruction, sometimes slower but then more quickly as we are lulled into thinking we have reduced, reused, recycled enough, is of biblical proportions. Bringing on the judgment, instead of the Kingdom, after our thousands of years of respite, our second, no, third, chance. Maybe the whole slate has to be wiped out, and the remnant start all over again, just like those Mayans, those Aztecs who saw the looming collapse of their so-called golden ages, and crept off quietly into the jungle to rekindle an existence more harmonious with this world before they forgot how.

Tonight I’ll probably have that dream again–the one I used to have when I was twelve, about hurdling down the road in a car, with no one in the driver’s seat, and me in the back seat and not having the skills or position to do anything. Yet I try to climb over the seat, see if I can save us from crashing–there are other passengers, but they are silent and out of view. And I wake up sweating.