So I got to take a train ride and these are some of my thoughts from starring out the window which I did a lot of.
We have passed cities and country side and I am struck by the tragic beauty of this place. A land so beautiful, yet it tells the story of innumberable tragedies. A place with hope for the future, but a past filled with sorrow it is forbidden to grieve. Rust and decay with a growth of new life and construction. Here prisoners live in ignorant freedom. This place where poverty of possession is being replaced with imported materialistic poverty of soul. The home of the future, who are controlled by a stagnating present, but bear the burden of hundreds of generations of history, culture, and family. Life and Death. Tragedy and Beauty.
It was just amazing to me how scenery could tell the story of a location and it's people so well.
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I thought you were going to wax philosophical on the theory of relativity. Einstein's classical example was using a train.
Beautiful post. It's sort of surreal to think of all of the people in your country, and how each of them is an individual, a soul, a person, an image-bearer. What is it like to walk around in their shoes? What does the world look like through their eyes? Each of them loves and hates and hopes and longs. What are they on their way to becoming? What will this place look like in 10 or 20 years? Pretty intense stuff.
I love the bit about poverty of possession vs. poverty of soul. Is it possible to be rich in both? Jesus says that you can't serve God and money, so I guess you could be rich in both in theory, but could only "serve" one.
This makes me think of my new buddy Martin Buber, who was a 20th century Jewish philosopher that Mars Hill makes us read because he's uber relational:
“And what is it supposed to mean that a man treats money, which is un-being incarnate, “as if it were God”? What does the voluptuous delight of rapacity and hoarding have in common with the joy over the presence of that which is present? Can mammon’s slave say You to money? And what could God be to him if he does not know how to say You? He cannot serve two masters – not even one after the other; he must first learn to serve differently.”
-Martin Buber
I have to write a paper on this guy by Wednesday, so he's in my head right and won't leave. I apologize for any pretentiousness or cheesiness which might have just been observed.
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