I was meandering my way through a security line of 150 or so people at the Milwaukee airport last Saturday afternoon. At the front of the line, a young woman with two little ones in tow started up a one-way heated argument with the security agent.

As I listened it was apparent that the woman did not have boarding tickets. She was holding an itinerary, which was not sufficient to get through security.

The agent was considerately pointing the way for this traveler to get to the ticket counter and acquire a boarding pass, but the woman was going to miss her plane if she went back. The situation became urgent from her point of view. She panicked and vehemently protested.

What could the agent say? It was her job to let people through who had the proper qualifications, and this woman didn’t have a boarding pass.

Increasingly desperate, the traveler got very worked up, tense, angry, emotional and difficult, almost impossible, to reason with.

She wanted the agent to call the airline and hold the plane or bring a ticket to her. Of course, this wasn’t going to happen.

The agent was very patient and courteous as the traveler gradually began to accept that she had made a big mistake and was not going to catch her plane. But she fought to the end wanting to get through the gate without proper qualifications. The agent, with help, finally physically ushered the upset mother down the aisle and off to the ticket counter.

It was quite a scene.

I certainly had compassion for the woman. She was either an inexperienced traveler or one of those people who don’t think carefully enough ahead of time to be fully prepared. But while watching the scene unfold of her increasing desperation to get through a checkpoint she absolutely was not going to get through no matter how hard she protested, I thought about the story of the ten virgins Jesus used to illustrate the importance of “coming to the gate” prepared.

“Five of them were wise, and five were foolish,” Jesus explained. When the call came to enter the bridgegroom’s chamber, ten were at the door, but only five were prepared and allowed to enter. The five unprepared ladies were sent away. And the lesson was brought home; to enter the kingdom of heaven one must be prepared!

From the point of view of letting the traveling woman through the gate, the agent showed no mercy. There was no way, period, that woman was going to get through without a ticket. End of story.

On one hand, it seemed totally uncompassionate, hard-nosed and insensitive. But on the other hand, there were reasons.

Well, with entering the kingdom of heaven, Jesus was saying as such through the story of the ten virgins. Five were allowed to enter because they were ready, and there was no way the other five were going to get in because they were not ready.

Christian Science teaches that the kingdom of heaven is “at hand,” as Jesus taught. This means that as children of God, all of God’s goodness is built into our being. We do not die into it or have to pass certain tests to find it. We already have it as divine heirs. But, it takes prayer, spiritual growth and increased understanding to realize this reality for ourselves. There is prayer-work to be done to be prepared to enter into the Kingdom consciousness. Just as the virgins had to be prepared, we have to be prepared too.

To come prepared is to be in a spiritually inspired state of Mind that is united with God, at-one with divine Love, and seeking the riches of Spirit above the riches of the world.

If thought is mired in materialism, selfishness, self-pity, anger, greed or fear, it is not prepared. It is in a foreign land to spirituality that hardly knows what it feels like to be heavenly minded or close to God.

When the “bell tolls” so to speak, and the stranger to God comes racing to the gate of spirituality expecting to be allowed entry, he is going to be sorely disappointed. Like the woman traveler racing to the security gate expecting to be let in without the proper papers, this stranger is greeted with a “Go back and get your thought in order,” type of reply.

God sent Jesus Christ to teach us how to prepare. Our marching orders have been issued. It’s all in the Bible, and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, helps explain it.

So, before you head off to the airport of eternal life, make sure you have your papers in order. Come prepared! Then getting through security won’t be a problem.

Happy travels.