Issue 1342 – Steel Rail Blues – January 12, 2024
I was having a hard time sleeping last night. Around three in the morning, I heard the haunting whistle of an eastern-bound freight train a long way off in the distance. I knew she was a freighter because it was the wrong time of night for the VIA Rail passenger train to arrive or depart.
I thought about where she might be headed and what she might be carrying. I thought about our cross-country train trip years ago. I wondered about the cars you see on the siding. Do the railroads ever “lose” cars on sidings for extended periods? What can I say? I confess that my thoughts are only sometimes profound when I am very tired early in the morning.
A half hour or forty-five minutes later, I could hear the whistle scream again. This time, it was a westbound freight train on the same line. At some point, they must have passed each other. I could imagine the thunder of two high-speed freight trains roaring by each other at high speed.
Undoubtedly, the whistles would have screamed in unison as they greeted each other.
The very ground would shake. Could anyone standing nearby them at that moment fail to be moved by the sheer power and energy of their passing? Or would those who lived nearby even notice the moment?
I pondered that the steel rail had once been the very lifeblood of this country. Even today, vast amounts of freight are carried by rail, but it is past its prime.
Once, every community had a train station. In many ways, it was one of the cornerstones of a community. The station was where people came and left. It was a place of celebration and mourning, reunion and parting. It was where goods arrived for sale or were shipped to market. Now, most of the stops no longer even exist. Whole communities have vanished.
The trains still go back and forth and provide a vital function, but the rails are just a shell of their former glory. If the trains and track could talk, what stories would they tell? Would they talk about the old days when everyone depended on the rails? Would they tell of life and death along the line? Would it sing songs of babies born en route and people dying? Would it regale us with rhymes of the change in the land from the frontier to the modern nation?
Would the rails tell the tale of railroads and railroaders that have long departed? Fortunes made and lost as the trains crisscrossed a continent? Would she tell tales of conductors, brakemen, railroad police and hobos?
I tried to imagine not only the stories but also the sounds. Would the tone of its voice be as mournful as a late-night train whistle?
The railroad is an excellent metaphor for the passing of humanity.
Civilizations rise and fall, their passing both impossible to miss and taken for granted. Business empires flourish and flounder. Monuments are erected and then eroded over time. The voices of those of the past could tell us stories of things even greater than the steel rail blues, but, like the rails in time, they too will be silent. That is the nature of life.
Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun? A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. The sun rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises. The wind blows to the south and goes around to the north; around and around goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns. All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again. All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun. Is there a thing of which it is said, “See, this is new”? It has been already in the ages before us. There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to be among those who come after.
Ecclesiastes 1:2-11
If this life is all there is, we should also be singing the blues. We are here for a while, have our impact, and, if lucky, fade to oblivion in old age. Our passing and accomplishments are forgotten within a generation or two.
By the grace of God, we are fashioned for something greater. We are created for all of eternity. Our passing through this time and place may leave no mark, but we can leave something behind that will outlast all the monuments of men combined.
We can leave a love for Jesus in the lives we touch. When people see Him and give their lives to Him, our work is destined for glory. Everything else will be burned up in time.
Until next time, enjoy this life. Celebrate it. Stay energized and energized. You are built for far greater things.
Be blessed
Hallelu Yah / Praise God
Kevin
Gleanings From The Word
Experience an extraordinary God in ordinary life.
Soli Deo Gloria (For the Glory of God alone)
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All contents, “Gleanings From The Word” and “Experience an Extraordinary God in Ordinary Life,” are © 2001, 2024 K.F. “Kevin” Corbin, Gleanings From The Word.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture is from the English Standard Version (ESV).
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