Down the Line

One of our number was delayed yesterday enroute from England to Scotland to participate in a Continuing Education Event by an incident on the Railway Line.

I found it difficult to embark on the Conference until I'd taken some time to reflect on/pray about this:

Sitting on the train

On a journey

Destination determined

Perhaps musing on events before the journey started

Or anticipating what is to come

An announcement is made:

"There's been a fatality on the line."

Inconvenient - to say the least.

Inconvenient for me

delaying my arrival 

Inconvenient for those with whom I am meeting

pushing back the start of a carefully planned programme

Inconvenient for train crews

those on either side of "the blockage"

Inconvenient for those whose task it is to schedule

arrivals and departures

and rolling stock

being in the right place

at the right time.

But much more than inconvenient

for family members

whose loved one has died

and who will never know

why that was the time and place and method chosen.

Much more than inconvenient for a community

saddened and shocked as the news travels through.

Much more than inconvenient for emergency crews

responding to a call

and becoming embroiled in trauma.

Way down the line

the effects roll out 

connections are made

and humanity

knows itself embroiled

in the drama of life

united in fragility

and vulnerability

and in being mortal.