Back home now, I’ve just enough time to unpack, then repack for another trip. The upshot is that, for the next few weeks, you’ll be reading some columns from about five years ago.

The Crier editors let me pick some of my own favorites, and I hope you enjoy them. But now I want to recount a wonderful part of my trip back from the funeral last week.

After flying up from Raleigh, I had an almost four-hour layover in the Newark Airport. I’d resigned myself to a lot of reading, writing, and wandering the terminal; but things turned out much better.

First, I found the airport’s chapel. In fact, it was called a "meditation room" since it was meant to meet the needs of several major faiths. In the softly lit room there was an altar table and lectern, of course; but in the front left corner, inside slightly parted drapes, was a bronze Catholic tabernacle with a red votive candle flickering above it. And in the back left corner, by a basin for ablutions, lay a woven prayer rug facing Mecca.

I sat down in the room, blessedly quiet space after the terminal’s noise, thinking I’d have an hour of Quaker solitude. But I wasn’t alone for long. About every five minutes someone would enter the room, spend time in prayer, and quietly leave.

A Muslim used the ablution bowl to purify his hands and face, and then knelt, forehead to the rug, for his noontime prayer. Next a young flight attendant walked to the tabernacle, genuflected, knelt in prayer, then touched the bronze door lightly before heading down the aisle and probably to her next flight.

Another woman, older, knelt for ten minutes, ramrod straight and palms pressed together, just in front of the altar. Later a young African-American walked softly up to a chair in the right front corner. He knelt with his head bent to his clasped hands on the chair seat and whispered his prayers. I could just make out a repeated, "God bless ... God bless ... " as he asked blessings on loved ones.

It was deeply moving, all of it; I spent my Quaker hour silently helping the visitors, so varied in faith, lift up prayers To Whom It May Concern. And surely does.

After the meditation room, I settled for my lunch in a cafeteria just off the main concourse. I had bought a "Philadelphia Cheese Steak" that would have raised hoots of derision at Pat’s in South Philly. The sights from there were great. [an error occurred while processing this directive]