Somewhere Between Cardiff and Fishguard
For some weeks now I have noticed that people seem to be desperate to be somewhere else. This is especially obvious in trains. For me, trains have always signified a slow relaxed way to get places, where the journey is as important as the destination. In the late 19th century this was most evident in the lavish decoration prevalent in carriages - fine mahogany and brass fittings were not uncommon. Well furnished dining cars, smoking cars, and sleepers were normative. It seems the role of trains has changed, becoming more like a grounded airline system on rails than anything else, simply a way to get there, wherever ‘there’ happens to be. Tightly scheduled connections have us fretting the clock, just as we do in airports. People simply endure the ride, pre-occupied with being elsewhere, on time.
A long train journey to a botanical paradise is providing an object lesson for this pseudo-cultural anthropologist. There are three Indian men here in the carriage, also two Chinese women, a Scotsman, and the occasional Englishman. None of them are smiling. All of them have mobile phones or ultra-miniature computers in hand and their levels of concentration suggest these devices will soon be transmitting the winning numbers in the greatest Powerball lottery of all time. I wonder how these people will even have enough awareness to get off at their selected stations. An admixture of other uncertain nationalities have insulated themselves from ‘us’ with their iPods. A woman sitting three feet from me gave me the barest of smiles before installing her iPod and powering up her electronic force field. My chance for conversation got deleted. She is now vacantly staring at the wall at the end of the carriage. There is nothing written on it.
There is an amazing absence of conversation of any kind in here. There is one middle-aged man further down the carriage looking around, evidently interested in his environment. He is obviously dressed and outfitted for cross-country hiking. He seems the kind of guy that knows where he is going and wants to see the world along the way. I wish he was sitting closer.
I was riding on a long-distance train from Vienna to Frankfurt to catch a plane. Suddenly the train screeched to an immediate halt out in open countryside. I didn’t know trains could stop so swiftly. Suddenly it became hauntingly apparent that someone did not know where he was going. Impulsively, a young man living in the paradise that is Austria decided my train could take him to a better place. At the optimal moment he threw himself beneath the carriage and his head rolled to a stop outside my window. There we sat in the Austrian countryside for an hour to conduct our own private existential reflections. For sure this would-be traveler found himself in another place. One can debate at length as to whether the train got him to his destination. My guess is it didn’t.
My journey today involves three trains; with razor-tight connections. One involves crossing into another country, yet it allows only seven minutes for everything to work right. It didn’t. Yet another man decided today my train could take him to a better place. It didn’t. In typical Austrian fashion this man ended his pain under the carriage. What had been a single isolated life-experience has become another point in a disturbing trend. No less than twelve people in my own experience have made impulsive dangerous and permanent changes to the itinerary of their lives, two of them by taking the train. They no longer have the option of making changes to their tickets.
Unlike the previous episode, this one made for obvious disruptions in the lives of thousands of people who had their trains cancelled, delayed, and rerouted. Some missed connections taking them to airports for flights. One woman was in despair because a highly coveted job interview in a distant city would be forfeited. Others would be absent from meetings and conferences. I would merely be inconvenienced. Missing that seven minute window would mean waiting for another day to get the train. The botanical wonders would still be there.
Curiously, such an untoward event leads to evanescent flecks of community forming on station platforms. For fifteen minutes several of us strangers commiserated about the existential meaning of our shared experience. We wondered out loud about who was responsible, the culture at large, technology, spiritual vacuums, parents, drugs. We wondered if we would make our connections. We dispersed, saying how nice it was to have chatted. Was it? Mute, we took our places again on several trains, texting, typing, handing three phones as the woman next to me is now doing. I wonder who it is that has need of three phones to stay connected.
On one of the station platforms was a large poster under glass advertising a study course. The poster simply asked, “Does life have meaning?” Three tick boxes below were labeled ‘yes’, ‘no’, and ‘probably’. A website was offered as a place to get answers to this foundational question. Would our two hapless travelers have found there the answers and guidance they needed to make beneficial changes to their tickets?
As I continue on a journey that has given me the option to travel anywhere in the world, I find myself often asking myself why I am going to a given destination. Am I going there because a dear friend will be waiting for me at the gate, because the place contains all of the ancient wonders of the world, because I have never been there, because it is the most photogenic place on earth, because it is exotic, or perhaps because I think it offers true life actualization for me.
Perhaps the greatest struggle many of us have in life is the search for significance, for purpose, for belonging. The great Abraham Maslow gave his life’s work to gaining understanding of what it is that rings our chimes and gets us out of bed in the morning. Certainly, his needs hierarchy has been profoundly helpful to looking at the role of motivation in the human experience. Yet, one can posit that Maslow didn’t go far enough. Perhaps as the Westminster Catechism says, we are primarily to be about the business of knowing our creator and making Him known. Knowing who we are in our Creator just might make it easier to know where we are going.
As I head into another land without money and without a place to stay, wondering if I am even headed the right way, I am reminded of the radiant promise from the One who specializes in helping those who have no idea where they are going in life.
"Don't be worried! Have faith in God and have faith in me. There are many rooms in my Father's house. I wouldn't tell you this, unless it was true. I am going there to prepare a place for each of you. After I have done this, I will come back and take you with me. Then we will be together. You know the way to where I am going."
I don’t think we take the train to get there.
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