Bent Tracks

What is wrong with this picture? Train tracks are supposed to be flat and straight with an occasional wide curve or reasonable grade but not bent in such a way as this. What is wrong with the world of this picture? Something has happened that has sent the normal away and substituted something that shouldn't happen – yet it did; the picture is proof. The normal laws of physics and railroad construction have seemingly been abrogated by something we can't or didn't see but which left very telltale marks behind.

What has caused this stress in the world? Mother Nature stirred and stretched, causing the earth to move in ways that can be understood (sort of) but not controlled. Tectonic plates rubbed along, building up stresses and strains until, like a rubber band stretched to its maximum, it broke loose and things moved around. That was un-normal enough to disrupt life for miles around and sent complacence flying out the window, so to speak.

What would set this world right? For those in the area of these tracks (near Christchurch, New Zealand), probably some reassurance that the earth isn't going to move any more, won't shake down any more buildings or kill, maim or render homeless and jobless any more people. A small victory would be to replace the warped tracks with more smooth, straight ones and the tracks once more put into useful service carrying people and goods from place to place as was intended.

Looking at the picture, I think about what tradition says about sudden changes in the normal routine and the sidetracking of the expected. Jesus certainly was a disruption in the normal life and teachings of his world. His parables certainly had an unexpected kink in them that pointed to a different conclusion than would normally be expected. His healings and teachings spanned the normal range of people he might have been expected to reach, women, lepers, people crippled in various ways, social and cultural outcasts, non-Jews and even the dead. His death on the cross was certainly a kink in the tracks to his disciple just as surely as Rome and the Sanhedrin thought they were straightening out some tracks bent in ways which they could not and did not approve. His resurrection certainly put an unexpected jolt in the community of followers and just as surely creates those same waves today.

Where this impacts my life is that even if things are going along quite nicely and normally, something will happen sooner or later to shift the tracks and cause a major slowdown or even a dead stop if not a derailment that will have to be cleared before I can proceed. There are times something seemingly as small as a grain of sand will do it while other times a mammoth earthquake feels like it has disrupted the whole of my life. Like the people of New Zealand and any place that has had a major shakeup, I have to rebuild and hopefully modify and strengthen what I rebuild so I can continue on with my journey. Sitting on a dungheap and covering myself with ashes won't work; I have to get up and do something about the situation, even if I am not precisely sure how to proceed. Still, one small step can begin the rebuilding and every step makes me stronger when I face the next stressor. I can then pass the lessons I've learned along to someone else who may have hit a bump in the roadbed that they weren't expecting.

The bent tracks for me are a metaphor for both life and faith; they represent things that can and do need to be repaired, replaced or even just have attention paid to it for whatever reason. I can't stop the earth from moving but I can re-lay new track to replace the displaced ones. Now if I just have the courage and strength to do it – and let God the surveyor set the line and the grade for the construction.

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Picture from Sean OShea at http://www.alexbealer.org/page.php?id=105, accessed 3/7/11