The old row house stood
in line with its counterparts along a hill that overlooked a wide street that
was split down the middle by an embedded railroad. Less than a block away, a
complicated intersection of city streets and railroads were manually controlled
by men in a shed that was perched atop a twenty foot tall pole. They could see the entire
confluence of train and automobile traffic that took turns descending from or ascending
to the high iron bridge that carried them across the Ohio River.
Inside the grey and black shingle-sided house that smelled
of cigarettes and frying grease, a little boy was yelling, “another train,
another train,” to no one in particular. He ran through the front room and
between his grizzled grandfather and the old black & white TV he was watching.
The boy plunged through the metal-framed screen door and onto the covered
porch. From there, he could see a string of rumbling black and gold locomotives
easing onto the street and across the busy intersection. The train was heading
away from the boy’s porch and off to unknown places. He yelled back toward the
living room, asking, “What kind is that one?” The gravelly voice of his grandfather
was hard to hear over the street sounds of cars and the train engines rumbling
and sounding horns. Crossing bells clanged, and “Pop’s” TV blared, and yet, the
little boy heard, “What’s it look like?” The boy yelled back, “They’re black
and brown!” He then heard Pop cough out, “It’s a Monon” over the din.
Going to visit grandparents was always exciting in those
days as the little boy could count on seeing, hearing, and smelling the
constant railroad activities that captured his imagination. His grandparents,
parents, brothers, and sister all found different places to be doing different things in the small confines of the old house. Still, he loved being on the front
porch awaiting the next train, and his favorite was the Monon.
The little boy in the paragraphs above was me more than
fifty years ago. So much has changed since then that it boggles my mind. My
grandmother died soon after the events described. My father’s company moved him
to a faraway city so that I rarely visited the old house on Main Street after
that. The wide variety of railroad names and colors gave way to mergers and acquisitions,
and one-by-one, the latticework of rails disappeared from the streets. Automated
signals took the place of the little shed on a pole, so it was demolished. The
mighty iron bridge stopped carrying automobile traffic, so a once-bustling
interchange became quite common and uninteresting. Train traffic through the
streets dwindled to non-existent as my beloved Monon died away and was
abandoned. The only railroad that uses the bridge rerouted out of the site from
the old front porch. Eventually, Pop died too. The grey-shingled old house was demolished
by a neighbor who used the lot for a new garage. The old house was my dad’s
childhood home . . . . Then, last week, my dad died too. Every connection with that place is lost to me now.
Sometimes, the inevitability of change is almost too much to
bear. It’s no wonder some people violently resist change since grief occurs
whenever one realizes a permanent loss. Permanent loss is, after all, a kind of
death, and that brings deep sorrow. It’s hard to believe the sin of Adam, and
the great flood introduced entropy and grief to the innocents. I’m so glad the
little boy in my story didn’t have to learn about this reality too soon. And
now that I am old enough to be his grandfather, I am the only one left to
comfort him in his sorrows.
Pastor, when you talk to your colleagues, does it ever sound
like you’re doing battle with an enemy you call, “them”? Can you see the people whom you serve as those
whose lives are so afflicted by sin and death that they just want to seek
refuge wherever they can find it? Have you not also know such grief? Be gentle
with yourself amid your sufferings and losses, and then do all the more so for
Christ’s flock. We can all move through change and adapt to overcome, but God’s
endless grace should be our weapon, and the Holy Spirit, our guide.
More to come . . .
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