Choo-Choo!

I'm sitting outside a coffee shop on a gorgeous Colorado fall day (blue sky, sun about to burn my forehead, leaves literally falling in my hair) when all of a sudden a painfully loud whistle blast makes me jump. But that's okay - it didn't last very long, and the bicyclist near the rails was made to pay attention.

Anywhere you go in this town, at any hour, you can hear a train. From bed before sunrise; in Sunday worship's Moment for Silent Prayer; at restaurants with the menu touting "$1 shots when the train rolls by". In the past 15 minutes I've heard their cautionary cries from every possible direction. The tracks criss-cross in more directions and locations than people - accustomed to driving over the embedded rails - often realize. 

We seem to have a love-hate relationship with our trains. We take dubious pride in the (semi) main street down which cars can drive parallel to the train, within feet of it - sometimes going with the traffic, sometimes against it. Yet we despise the "wasted time" and inconvenience of having to sit (sometimes for 20 minutes) waiting for flashing red lights to cease their warning and restraining bars to raise their ban. 

I wonder what the symbolic message might be for the living of life in such an environment? "Slow down!" is too simplistic. I kind of like "pay attention". But there's more to it. If you've thought about this, tell me your musings. I'll have to muse more myself.