San Francisco to Glenwood Springs

I am watching a group of 25 year olds go up the train one has a silver metal case I presume he has a musical instrument he will play in the observation car. By the time we reach the observation car, strange name like you can’t observe from any other car, tanoy announcement stop looking out the windows unless you’re in the observation car, end of announcement. Yes so I get to the Observation car and the case is open and in full swing you guessed it is a poker game. There are neat piles of different coloured chips in front of the players and playing cards are doing the rounds. This game continues to evolve in one form or another until Reno ** hours. There is beer drunk stories swapped money lost and won but no arguments, no bad language, no difficult embarrassing encounters with fellow human beings. Just fun.
This train journey is made up of the usual Amtrak characteristics top speed of 50 70 MPH, the occasional stop for track maintenance, when you are always told by the crew what the problem is. Not inappropriate amounts of time our speed is that of an elderly lady on a bicycle in no rush to get to church. But always the movie on view out of the window is of the American landscape who is always the main actor with humanity as supporting role.
What America has and I believe they may have forgotten this is, space. For hours on end there is just land. Land then land then land. In England train travels out of the city to take you to another city, you are moved out of the city to the suburbs into the countryside and then into the suburbs over coffee, you get what I mean. Coffee time can take you from city to city. Here you get coffee, dinner, poker and no second city maybe a small town like Truckee and the empty American landscape. What they have is space. I presume in this one sabbatical journey I will have travelled more miles than Jesus did in his adult life.

Comments

  1. Oh, no. It's not forgotten. Space is one of the first things I mention when people ask me what I miss about the States. Perhaps, we all forget to value what we have, and want what we don't have. I'm even praying for rain this week, here, in England, which I never thought I'd have to do. But, man, are the gardens bone dry.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Response To Bishop North

A while back Bishop Phillip North spoke to New Wine and caused a bit of a reaction one of it was a Tweet to my millions of followers. In response I had a phone call from The Church Times asking for a quote because I serve in a poor parish, I declined and said I would put a more considered response on my blog, so here it is with a link to The Bishops full talk.


https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2017/4-august/news/uk/there-s-a-future-for-the-church-if-evangelicals-put-the-poor-first-bishop-north-tells-new-wine



1.One of the issues the church does not recognise is the exportation of people, talents and money from parishes like mine to middle class parishes which is draining and demanding on leadership. For 10 years I thought I was building a community, then it dawned on me I was building people up to go to other places.
2.Bishop Phillip talks of abandonment of the poor: I think it’s more complicated than that. When I came back to my Deanery in 2000 to my present post, we had 10 full ti…
Read more

17

Image
17 years ago today we came to St Mary’s Pype Hayes to be their servant in Christ. My first parish as parish priest, vicar, servant, apprentice father and husband. It was the place we were called by God to bring our passion, make our mistakes and share our lives. We did not have a plan but we agreed not to move until our daughter left education, she had been in a number of schools due to our commitment to following our call as a family. When we came to look at the parish our daughter of 9 years refused to get out of the car saying “I’m not getting out at this tip” she was right we were surrounded by derelict houses used by drug dealers and vandals. Our vicarage was recommended by the local glaziers to have plastic windows fitted due to constant vandalism. My son was quietly calm about our move and the loss of his friends, he made his move into his new school with sense of confidence I have always admired. During the early years Erin and I regularly lay awake in bed listening to groups …
Read more

Two thoughts

Image
My two thoughts for the morning. As the BBC moves to replace the CofE as the national church of no belief, as parts of the BBC becomes more irrelevant in the new world is it possible The BBC will consume itself with its left wing cynical view? When the issue of faith is shown the back door and told not to come back who will the new priests and priestess pour their cynicism on? Perhaps themselves? For we all need the other voice who we don’t agree with to gain a greater understanding of who and what we are.  History tells us every regime needs someone to bullySecondly, will The Church not be better without these platforms of privilege? When we are no longer welcome on the platform of privilege as will happen at some point, will we not need to shape up to redefine what we believe, what we have to share, what we don’t need? Privilege tends to make you slow on your feet, breed chummy inward looking relationships, privilege steals from people the ability to move under the defining culture …
Read more