Oh My God: The Tracks are on Fire

(I couldn't find a picture of railroad tracks on fire in unsplash.com. The golden light on these tracks was the closest I could come.)

I lived in the Chicago area for a number of years and commuted to downtown Chicago for most of those years. I remember commuting home one fairly bitterly cold evening. We pulled out of the station, and, there they were, the tracks were on fire. My thought was: "Oh my god, the tracks are on fire." No one else seemed to be bothered by it. I don't remember if I figured it out or if someone told me that they light the switches to keep them from freezing. I would see this from time to time over the years, but not every winter day. (You can see it here in this video I found on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HHqZMHRJQ8).

Life, right now, can seem as if the tracks are on fire everywhere. Unlike the literal track fires, these fires seem to be impeding progress. It is so easy to think that life is flowing along linearly, then whoosh, something seems to be on fire. It forces us to sidestep or spiral or move in a different direction. It requires a different perspective on things. This is what I posted on Facebook recently: "Sometimes making forward progress is done by changing your perspective. Somewhat like turning a piece of art upside down to see if it inspires you as you're working on it. Or doing stream of consciousness journaling to see what emerges."

Maybe all the crises going on around the world are an opportunity to see what each of us can do about changing our perspective, to sidestep something. Look at all the people standing up, saying no, saying I want something different than the old tired ways. Might be something like lancing a boil to get all the gunk out. Is that what's happening right now? 

I have listened to a podcast from the The Liturgists a number of time. It's called Enemies. The whole podcast is quite interesting in light of all the divisiveness going on. This is the link (although you will need to scroll down to find it): http://www.theliturgists.com/podcast/?offset=1512460800611

I think that taking the time to listen to the whole podcast is worthwhile. 

I am currently working on clarity around how I see myself, old family dynamic patterns that still live on me, and how or even whether I want to change any of this.   


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The picture is by JF Vanveen. I found it on unsplash.com.

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