KEEPING TRACK
I've always loved railway tracks. I enjoy trains as well, but it was the tracks, not the trains, that captured my imagination.
I remember growing up, right besides the tracks, on the outskirts of Peterborough. If I went one direction, I came to a trestle that crossed the Otonabee River, which connected me to the Little Lake Cemetery, yet another "haunt" of my childhood. That is, until the night I fell into a soon-to-be-occupied grave, but that's another story. If I went the other way, the tracks went behind my best friend, Stephen Peltz's place and then on to places unknown, at least to me at the time.
I remember going for long walks on the tracks, trying to imagine where they went and who they carried. How many families, how many new beginnings, how many goodbyes, had those very tracks that I walked on witnessed? It was if the tracks themselves became an avenue for the journey of life.
I also remember defacing government property (pennies) by letting the trains flatten them (Please don't send penny police to my door!) Then there was the shining moment in which I revealed my true genius by sticking my tongue to one of the rails on a cold winter day. Maybe that's why I feel such a oneness with the rail . . . .
One of my favourite walks these days takes me over a pedway that crosses one of the sections of rail here in Toronto. The picture that accompanies this Whatcha was taken a couple of days ago off that pedway. Sometimes I just stop there above the tracks and take my time looking both directions. It's not that I am waiting for trains, it's just that the long ribbon of rail draws me in. It creates a longing in my heart. It makes me wistful, and a wee bit nostalgic. For a few moments I become that kid with the time to imagine again. I think about connections I can't see and places I haven't been. I think of lives that intersect with mine because we've both been on the same rail. I mediate on the journey.
But, each time I take that walk I am also reminded of how the tracks separate, just as much as they connect. Once I cross that pedway, I have entered into an entirely different neighbourhood. Even though both my neighbourhood and this neighbourhood border each other, there is a great distances between us. It's like the tracks are a kind of Berlin wall — they create barriers to movement. Obviously this is true of any city or town where the railway exists, or we would never have heard about "living on the wrong side of the tracks". The tracks create barriers and define territories.
What does this all mean? Well think about it this way: in the world of the rail, enabling travel in one direction, inevitably limits travel in another competing direction. Longing for the city in the far-off place means that we have to sometimes limit our access to what's right next door. Building the infrastructure that makes such a journey possible also makes barriers a reality. Are you "tracking" with me?
I am sure you can come up with all kinds of spiritual applications with this train of thought. Here are a few Scriptures to help you along the way:
“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will.” (Romans 12:2)
“Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.” (Colossians 3:1-2)
“By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.” (Hebrews 11:8-10)
If you have any thoughts or comments, just click on my name at the bottom of this page to email me.
