The Other Side of the Tracks

I don’t know much about this place yet.
Haven’t been here long enough 
to tell you its stories 
or understands its people.  


It takes a while to get to know a place – but there is one thing about this place I do know – 
it has a train.

Now, I am not sure what this train looks like – 
I have never seen it.  
I don’t know where it comes from 
or where it’s headed to, 
but I do know we have a train, 
because I've heard it.  


Sometimes in the middle of day 
its unmistakable rhythm becomes the background, 
white-noise soundtrack for my new inner-ring, 
sub-urban existence.   


And there are those late nights, 
when its lonesome whistle interrupts 
my ongoing argument with the ceiling fan, 
and for a brief moment I find that I am not alone 
at this hour when its seems most everyone else is asleep.  


So, even though I've never seen it – the one thing I know about this place for sure is – it has a train.

I have taken up walking recently.  


After the last church meeting has finished and the boys have been tucked in their beds, I kiss my wife, step out door and spend the next hour putting my feet onto the streets of this place I hope soon begins to feel more like home.  


In part, that’s why I do this– 
to get a better sense for where I am – 
to become less of a stranger in a strange land. 

These walks do however serve another purpose.  


They have become where, and when, I pray – 
pray for the aches and pains 
of the bodies and souls of my friendly faithful. 

It is where I pray for wisdom and patience – 
both in surprisingly short supply some days.  


And it is where I pray for, and often find, the courage
 to go back tomorrow and try this again.  


Someday my kids will be able to say, 
“Oh, our dad – he’s just a wandering seminarian.” 

It was on one of these recent walks 
that I turned off onto a street 
I had never been on before 
and found myself in the midst of an industrial park:  
heating and cooling – 
packing and manufacturing – 
parking lots full of dump trucks and backhoes – 
even a place that specializes in renting industrial cranes (which is good – because you never know when you might need to rent a crane.)  


The midnight lights on in the windows 
even as the clock neared midnight 
peel back another layer of this punch-clock world 
where I now find myself living.   

And suddenly there it was – the train track.

I push through the grass overgrown with neglect and set foot on the empty tracks.  


There were stories to decipher left in the hieroglyphic graffiti of retired boxcars 
and overhanging lights 
frozen for the moment in red.  


I kick rock along this hidden stretch of rails that runs through the heart of this place.

And that’s when it happened.  

Without warning or notice.  
Every hair on my neck and arm stood at full attention.  Every sense suddenly heightened.  
My heart and breath raced ahead 
to see what was around the hidden bend. 
I pulled the head phones from my ears to listen.   

Was it coming?   

How would I know?   

Where would it come from?   

Would I be facing it head on or  

would it be sneaking up from behind?   

I was sitting ringside as pure, almost giddy, excitement 
duked it out with utter fear flapping uncontrolled 
to become the sole proprietor of the pit of my stomach.  


What was I supposed to do?


Let the four-year-old within me giggle with adventure and wait for it to pass by in a rush of glory? 


Or find the quickest exit and get the hell out of there?

I am pretty new to this whole pastor’s life.  
Most days more unsure of what to do 
than I was the day before, 
wondering if there was a handful of classes I missed somewhere along the way. 

Maybe all you can do each day is step on the barren track until the train you’ve only heard in the distance is suddenly upon you.

I guess I'll show up in the morning and see what happens...