When I ride the train to Philly there are stretches when I can look down into people's yards. Well, "yard" can be a misnomer. While it is true that in the suburbs the green space around single family homes can be as manicured as a public garden, others are the size of a minivan, slammed up against neighbors like people in line at Disneyland.
There
are white picket fences. Others are weather-worn. Closer to the city, there are chain linked dividers with Slinkys on top. There was a fence with metal bars, but someone was desperate enough to get through that they pushed two apart and must have shimmied between. Some had gates, as if neighbors could enrich an afternoon in summer. Others gave the message to "Stay Away".
Being thirty feet above their determined efforts to divide, it all seemed comical. Did these
homeowners really think that six feet boards could erase the connection between them? Between all of us?
Boundaries are important for feeling safe. Absolutely. And yet, the landscape I see when the train goes roaring by tells a different reality. We are part of the human family, even if we speak different dialects. Watching this diorama in each direction for the past four months has brought that to my attention.
Soon my pilgrimage
to the chaplaincy program will end. There will be no more quiet conversations at the bedside of someone I will never meet again. Yet in a way that floats above words, I have joined a larger panorama. One that cannot be chopped up by planks and two by fours.