Work Out

Invite a friend to take a walk, drive, bicycle trip, or other type of ride along a path that you have not been down before.  Begin the journey with a time of prayer, asking God to be with you as you journey.  As you go, take notice of the sights and sounds of the journey?  What looks new to you?  What looks the same?  Did you feel comfortable or uncomfortable as you stepped out into the unknown?  What impressions did your companion have of the journey?  Was there a sense that God was making this journey “holy?”

So, we decided to take the train.

The Riverline is a light-rail Train that travels between Trenton and Camden - it goes right through our town.  It's been open for two years, and we've never been on it - so we decided to get on it today and see where we ended up.  It was kinda fun.

Jen and I took our son along (our daughter was in school), before going we all prayed together that God might show us something as we journeyed.  we saw a lot.

We decided to head north for this trip, because we really haven't been up that way much since we've moved to this area - and we'd certainly not explored Burlington City at all (which was where we did our turn-around).  So, we hopped on the Train and moved ahead  Going north was uneventful, but man oh man did I notice things that I'd not seen before!  Actually, this was true on both trips - coming back I noticed huge apartment complex that I'd never seen before.  That blew my mind, given that I'd been up and down that particular road more times than I can count in the past three years.

It's interesting, travelling on public transportation.  When you travel in your car you can pick and chose who you ride with, when you're on public transport you get mixes of people who would not otherwise be travelling together, together.  I saw a grandmother pointing out to her children that the behavior of some unsupervised kids on the train was wrong.  I saw guys in buisiness suits sitting near folks who looked like they were coming off a factory shift.  I saw moms with their kids, and I saw people who looked like there were heading to class.  Some people read, others listened to music, most chatted with their friends.  Almost no one made eye contact.

 That's what I re-learned on this little jaunt into the unknown.  I learned that, even when we put people together we can't force them to make a connection - and I wonder how Christians (who seem to have as strong an impulse towards separation as any group I've ever been a part of) might be energized into a people who "make connections" between various groups of people who never need to associate.  It's a thought...