Train Ride
As I came home this evening, got on the wrong train. I intentionally did so as I did not want to wait around 10 minutes for my train.
Missed my jump off. And, got off on the next one.
Switched directions and was good.
A young man was talking to himself and in between played his music a bit loud.
Made sure not to look in his direction.
And, doubly made sure “No eye contact”.
Finally, eye contact was forced as he intentionally bumped into me on his way to the “Standing Room” on the Train Bus.
The eye contact was affectionate and affirming. The way things are supposed to be.
He made ruckus with a few people. Stared into an older man and threatened to beat him, if he hears anything.
As he got off the train, he spoke of looking forward to the day we get to see him on TV.
Thanksgiving Dinner
Takes me back to Thanksgiving dinner at my big brother’s home. Made friends with a man visiting from a foreign country.
He told me how bad things are in his country of origin. A made man, yet he was scared about forthcoming elections. He deployed all the corruption and said that there will be wide unrest if things don’t get better.
I asked him if faith, specifically the religion we share can help.
He replied NO, and continued that he does not think so; the problems are simply too big.
Bruce Springsteen
“A lot of what’s going on has been a large group of people frightened by the changing face of the nation,” Springsteen told Esquire magazine in a separate interview. “There seems to be an awful lot of fear.”
“The founding fathers were pretty good at confronting their fears and the fears of the country. And it’s the old cliché where geniuses built the system so an idiot could run it. We are completely testing that theory at this very moment. I do believe we’ll survive. But I don’t know if I see a unifying figure on the horizon. That worries me.”
“I don’t know if there is a way to really bring those jobs back and I think that’s what’s causing so much anxiety to so many Americans,” he said.
Springsteen talked his father’s experience to illustrate what he understood as reason for the frustrations of voters.
“My father worked as a 16-year-old floor boy in the rug mill, then went off to war,” Springsteen told the Times. “When he came home, they shut the rug mill down, and he went to work on the Ford Motor plant line in New Brunswick. He worked in the Nescafé plant in Freehold. Worked in the plastics factory in town, he was a truck driver, a bus driver, drove a taxi.”
“I don’t know precisely what I’m going to do this time, but I tend to think the more you make yourself available, perhaps the less weight your word carries,” he said.
Bible Verses
Hebrews 12:26-29 ( Link )
At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.”
The words “once more” indicate the removing of what can be shaken—that is, created things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain.
Let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe
2nd Peter 2:10-11 ( Link )
Therefore, my brothers and sisters, make every effort to confirm your calling and election. For if you do these things, you will never stumble
