Summer weather has returned. Hot but not humid. The lawn mower man ran over our dead grass. It did not take long. They focused on the weeds around the Brooks Pond. No matter the heat, it is fall. The baseball teams are seeking a berth in the championship. Contentment comes from a sense of place. The fighting words of Rabel Rousers do not sink in. It is calming to know who you are. A constant state of unrest is the state of some leaders.

‘Let’s watch them fight,’ the Leader says. Confusion diverts attention from what is important. When the Balm of Gilead is needed, vinegar mixed with wine is given. It is good to be alive. To know who you are without influence. The Pond is still. No ill winds blowing. Bullfrogs are resting for the nightly concert. We were in Maine two years ago. Tomorrow we will visit the Lighthouses on Open Lighthouse Day. One of the Lighthouses had a path of large stones leading to it. The Stones were separated by large cracks. MJ and I turned back after we saw the danger in the cracks. Old folks could easily break a leg or more. Aaron Jonathon, Marcy and Brock ventured forward, but it took them some time to reach the Lighthouse. Such is life. We walk on the smooth stones surrounded by cracks big enough to fall into and be lost. Big enough to throw a cat through. Or a small dog. Of course, we would do neither. The adventure was exhilarating. If you are a gazelle.

Our journey is on the Holiday Train. When we look out of the windows, there are majestic scenes. The sleeper cars are lovely, and the food is excellent. The Holiday Train runs across tressles. The drop off is frightening. I recall Dennis and me as boys smoking our Marlboro cigarettes along the train trestle in Eldorado and hearing a distant train whistle. We ran back to the tracks, surrounded by land that you would not have to drop fifty feet to reach. Then we finished our Marlboroughs. On our Holiday Train, there is an agreement that everyone is going to the same destination. First is the Halloween celebration. Ichabod Crane is seeking the Headless Horseman. We bob for apples. There is a hayride that takes up several train cars. We sit together around the autumn bonfire and tell tall tales and drink hot chocolate and eat s’mores. Fighting has no place on the Holiday Train. We are going home. We seek neither praise nor battle. We set out on our journey at birth. This phase will end in death. We know there is more. What we do not know is much greater than what we know.

We wait. We watch. We live this life God has given us. Divisions we feel we have created. They are man-made. Perhaps we place more value on rhetoric than on reality. The traveller, the stranger on the side of the road, did not care about the politics of the Good Samaritan. He saw the Pharisee and the Levite pass him by. He thought he would die. Kindness is kindness. Love is love. In our desperate hour of need, did the Helpers ask us about our political affiliation?

The Holiday Train rumbles down the track of life. Thanksgiving is coming. Why not break bread and pull the wishbone with those who have different political/religious views? None of us is a monster. We are God’s creation, illustrating the kaleidoscope that God is. We all seek to look behind the Veil. Preachers tell us that they have peeked. Their dogma does not prove the fact.

The last car of the Holiday Train has the wolf and the lamb lying down together. The Baby Jesus is in the Manger. His working-class mom and dad are beaming by his side. Jesus came to heal our divisions. He came to love everybody and teach us how to love as he loves. We climb out of the massive cracks that separate us and in which we have fallen. Republicans lend a hand to Democrats, and Democrats hug their Republican friends.