I have a car. His name is Coche and he’s awesome. But I’m going to level with you, I love me a quality public transportation system. After I got over the fear that a careening fireball would engulf our subway car (it happened in some movie), I began to see that this was a fantastic idea. Sure stations can be dirty and kind of creepy late at night. New York and Chicago are both working on that. But it’s a train that speeds underground! Or (even better) in Chicago, a subway and an elevated train that looks like the grandfather of the monorails at Disney World (of which I am also quite fond)!
But I realized something even better as EA and I rode the L Trains throughout the week: public transportation is the great equalizer. In our cars, we saw businessmen in three piece suits, the homeless, immigrants, young families, teenagers, tourists, the rich, the poor, the middle class, and scores of ethnicities all sitting and standing together.
We would all get to the station at the exact same time. If you were highly successful, you still got to your station at the same time as the guy that asked fellow passenger for a buck. And if one just dropped a ton of money shopping on Michigan Avenue, it did not guarantee them preferential treatment for a seat on the L. In fact, the official policy on the L trains is that only two groups get preferential treatment for seats: the elderly and the physically impaired. I find it interesting that a train looks out for two groups many of us unfortunately ignore.
There is something very good about this, this reminder that we’re all in this together. For all our stuff or lack thereof, all our nice or ragged clothes, all our success or failure in the eyes of the world, we all live, we all die, and we all get to our stops at the same time.
I looked around and remembered again that we are all made in God’s image. We are all frail, all sinful, all fallen, all in need of grace, all capable of redemptive acts. During this Easter season, it was a reminder that Christ died for each person on that car.
So if you get the chance, get away from the bubble of your own vehicle every once in awhile and join the folks taking public transportation. It might make you uncomfortable, but it also might remind you that—in spite of all the trappings of life—we’re all on the same level.
I believe that most of us experience an internal tug-of-war between the past and the future. In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis’ titular demon supervisor advises his underling Wormwood that one of best ways to keep a human from doing good is to keep them ping-ponging between those two times that are not the present. One keeps trying to recapture or reach towards moments that are mist. It can keep a person from doing something.
The quote above resonates with me because it harnesses the past and unfinished future into a catalyst that animates our present. We remember the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus because it means something today and compels us to presently work for the Good that is already here, but also not yet. We remember the hope and pain of the past to do something that help us take some sort of step each and every day. We realize that the hope which exists within the gospel story is not yet fully realized. Many people are still being left behind and forgotten. The realization, as the theologian Metz states, puts pressure and questions on the present.