Since I’ll be taking a long train ride this week, I thought I’d post this piece I wrote the last time I rode a train.

Do you ever have those moments when you know there is something powerful and awe-inspiring at work in the space where you are?  Something beyond yourself that makes you catch your breath with its beauty or power or inspiration?  Something that gives you a tingly feeling because you know you were blessed to be there at that moment? 

It’s not necessarily a big moment – sometimes it’s something very small and seemingly insignificant – but it’s usually a moment that changes you in some way.  Sometimes it’s just a song that fills you with inspiration and hope.  Sometimes it’s the glimpse of your child at play.  Sometimes it’s a deep inexplicable knowing that there is goodness or beauty in the world.

I’m not sure what to call those moments, nor how to accurately define them.  Words just don’t seem to suffice.  I heard someone describe them as moments in which you “experience the sacred”.  Others refer to them as “spirit-filled” moments.  Probably for each of us, a different definition holds some measure of truth.

I had one of those moments on the train last week.  As I gazed out the window at the passing scenery, I found myself mesmerized by the beauty of snow.  Snow painting the tips of evergreen trees.  Snow melting into droplets on the window.  Snow crushed by the tires of a car.  Fluffy white blankets of snow with just the hint of day-old footprints cutting through the middle.  Snowflakes falling gently from the sky and mingling with the millions already on the ground. 

Just then, a song started playing on my mp3 player.  These were the opening lyrics: “Look out your window on a winter’s morning, your breath is steam and there’s frost falling, and the sun casts a spell upon the road. A thing of beauty is not a thing to ignore.”  Wow.  What a moment!  This was not just some random snow-covered landscape.  This was a thing of beauty.  This was a gift from God for my hungry eyes. 

While I sat there in awe of the snow and the song and the presence of God, the train rounded the corner and the vista changed.  There spread in front of me was the great Lake Superior in all its cold blue wonder, capped by white icing on the edges of the waves, blending into the blue, green and grey of the sky.  The second verse of the song came on…“And the water does a dance upon the stones – I sit and listen, I will not ignore.” My eyes filled with tears at the pure wonder of it.  I think I was shaking a little, feeling the indisputable presence of the sacred.

It is impossible to accurately capture these moments in words or even in pictures.  Even the memory of it doesn’t do justice to the power of the moment.  I am so grateful, though, that I was there and that I was open to encountering God.

If you can this week, find some time to search for the sacred. You may want to go to some quiet place where you can hear the whispers above the din. Like a labyrinth.

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