CHRIST
IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith for the Years of Winter
“That’s
no way to run a railroad.”
That’s what Mr. Gray always said when he
disapproved of something. He assumed that once he had said that, the discussion
was over.
Mr.
Gray was well named. He was definitely the gray
eminence, the elder statesman, of our congregation. He had been the
vice-president of a large meatpacking company in Chicago. He and his wife had
no ties to our community. They had retired to the hills just because they liked
the scenery. Our people were delighted when the Grays decided to come to church
in our village instead of going to the big church in the county seat town.
Whenever Mr. Gray said, “That’s no way to run a railroad,” they whispered to
me, “We’ve got to do what he says. He was the vice-president of a big company
in Chicago!”
“But
he’s wrong,” I would say. “He doesn’t know anything about this community. And a
church is not a railroad. You can’t
run them the same way.”
Mr.
Gray didn’t actually know anything about running a railroad, of course, and
neither did I, but that was not the point. It was a phrase everyone used back
then, about anything. It simply meant: That’s not the right way to do it,
whatever it might be.
I
was like the folks in that church. I did understand them and the community.
But I was young. And I was poor. Business success and money were assumed both
then and now to be marks of intelligence.
One
of the reasons the people were so pleased the Grays came to church there was
they assumed Mr. Gray would be a generous giver. He was not. That finally got
them to thinking that maybe railroads and churches were not the same thing.
Mr.
Gray assumed the discussion about anything was over when he said “That’s no way
to run a railroad.” The problem was, the discussion ended not on how to get
“it” done, but how it couldn’t get done. He didn’t know the right way; he just
knew what was not the right way.
It’s
ironic. Everyone claimed to know the right way not to run railroads, but
no one knew the right way to do it. That’s why railroads are so irrelevant to
us now. The right way to run a railroad was the standard for running anything
and everything, but no one entrusted with running a railroad got it right.
I’m
coming to the end of the line. I still don’t know how to run a railroad, but at
least I’m still on the track. Maybe that’s good enough.
JRMcF
I
tweet as yooper1721.
No comments:
Post a Comment