Words'nTone

Yes I know it’s March 9th and I haven’t posted since February 28th; it has been busy and crowded these last few weeks.  I spent March 2-5 in DC at our Community Action national legislative conference.  I took the train down to DC from CT this time—what a wonderful trip.  Should have been taking the train for all these trips to DC.  In the midst of doing “homework” (you know office work), I spent time looking out the window.  I loved seeing the homes and factories and neighborhoods, and the people just in eye-reach of the train.  I keep thinking after seeing so many homes and dwelling places—do we really have that many people living here.  Yes, over 300 million now.  But I kept thinking, There are real people living in those homes.  Most of the homes were blighted or concentrated.  I was awestruck at the conditions, wondering about the lives that live among these homes and neighborhoods 24/7.  I wondered what impact there is on the kids; how many will be able to escape to a better life.  I don’t mean a life in the burbs—heavens no!  Just a meaningful life, personally, family, college, work.  I wondered what are we promoting as a civil society, so vast with resources and the capacity to do so much better, in allowing such concentrations of poverty and blight to exist—and to let children and youth remain trapped in it.

The train ride and my ability to see “America” as it is for hours at a time caused me to reflect on my regular mode of transportation—flying.  I kept thinking that most non-poor, especially among the evangelical community, are living life like flying in an airplane as opposed to taking the train.  Flying doesn’t let you see things as they are in everyday life; the train ride does.  Soaring high above it all, the impact of everyday life is not seen, almost avoided, out of eye-reach, small, minute.  Flying offers a distant, disconnected view of everyday life.  Sure the landscapes are beautiful from 22 thousand feet—I’ll admit that.  But the train ride showed me everyday life as it is—rolling by my eyes with enough time to think about the lives behind the homes, streets, the neighborhoods.  The train ride made me think about the separation we build into our lives to keep us at a distance to the concentrated areas of poverty.  I think I’ll be taking the train more often now.

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