Trains

Last week I rode a train to New York City from Lancaster and two days later I took one back home again. As I was whisked away across landscapes of farmland which blended into suburban subdivisions and then into urban height, I was also reading Sara Gruen's account of an American circus troupe in her novel, Like Water for Elephants. Throughout this narrative, I was taken back to the era of the Great Depression and was given a window into a very different world. It made me wonder what it would have been like herding the range of wild lifestock from one city to the next without either people or animals being harmed and all intact. My visions of these trips are chaotic and full of energy. No city was the same. No performance was exactly the same either.

I was then thinking about the ways train transport has shaped America, from the cattle industry in the late 1800s to the exploration of the West. Scenes from a Louis L'Amour Western come to mind. Hordes of Indians running alongside the trains in the middle of a vast prairie much to the horror (and delight) of passengers. Indeed train travel revolutionized our country as it developed. I see it when I take my kids to the Railroad Museum and to Strasburg Railroad. It certainly seems like a simpler time.

On a more somber note, I also think about the scenes I have read or seen in stories about the Holocaust: Night, Schindler's List, and The Hiding Place come to mind. Bodies stacked and packed in claustrophobic spaces, knowing their fate would be even worse than being shoved in the rickety train car. I remember walking through one of those cars at The Holocaust Museum and seeing the shoes of these victims and wondering how humans can be so cruel.

This one marvelous invention has been used for both good and evil and is like so much of what we create in the hopes of improving our world. It is only as good as those who use it. In itself it is neither good nor evil. I love trains and the hope they embody but I know that others would rightly think quite differently about these modes of transport.

New York Musings

Yesterday I had a New York casual day. I worked in a Tribeca cafe, had lunch with my bro at a Vietnamese noodle house in Chinatown, ate the most scrummy chocolate peanut butter bar at a Chelsea bakery, visited free art galleries in Chelsea, walked the High Line where I sat and read and wrote after a stroll, ate at a world renowned Italian restaurant in the theater district, and watched a thought-provoking off Broadway production before catching the train to my brother's apartment in the Upper West Side. It was relaxing and invigorating to think and wonder in this fine city.

It struck me how in New York one is inundated with all sorts of images of what constitutes "the good life". Billboards promise beauty, wealth, and power, not to mention narcissistic pleasure. As I strolled I pondered how my identity could be shaped by these sights and sounds and how empty I could feel since there is no way anyone could measure up to the ideals that assault my senses.

On the other hand, I think about God's ideal of perfection and being like Him and I also know there is no way in my own power I could measure up no matter how hard I would try. It's easy to just give up because there is no way I could achieve either ideal. However, I do not. Instead, I find a new way, one that is at peace with who I am right now, after all, I am created in God's image for His purposes. Simultaneously, I am always looking for ways to improve who I am as I move a little bit closer to being like Christ.

To that end, here are a few of my New Years resolutions: 1. Write 9 lines a day 2. Walk briskly three times a week. 3. Watch one documentary a week. 4. Quiet time at least 3 times a week. 5. Date night with Janet once a month. 6. Read 4 books a month. 7. Sing more often. 8. In bed by 10 pm, up by 6:30 am. 9. Play with my kids every day. 10. Do something I have always wanted to do but haven't yet done this year (see last year's Bucket List.).

I know I won't always make these goals but I will keep trying in an attempt to always become a better person but recognizing my limitations and being willing to be easy on myself as well.