Drove home from Peachtree City early morning under an overcast sky rolled in layers of greys and beige clouds with an occasional gap of pale blue sky canvas peeking through. I noticed the wild periwinkle colored wisteria in the forests on the drive home, so beautifully draped over the trees, their blooms hanging like clusters of delicious grapes. I also noticed the deep pinks and purples of the budding and blooming azaleas and the pure white blooms of the dogwood trees. Mother Nature’s spring watercolors are just glorious. But I think Mother Nature forgot spring has sprung. She sent a cool rain to my yard to match up with Father Sky’s vanilla overcast clouds today. Even the cardinals stayed hidden.

I’ve been sitting in the lady den since I got home, watching the bamboo contort themselves in the rain and occasional wind gusts. One large stalk, long slender branches drooping and heavy with rain, makes me think of Bumble, the abominable snowman, dressed in camouflage. If that bamboo stalk walks off I’m heading for the hills.

Fatty the squirrel has been working his grey nimble fingers to the bone in the rain trying to get the lid to come off the container bird feeder outside the lady den windows. I screwed the lid on! He’s a determined little fella. Hasn’t given up yet. Now he’s hanging upside down on the tube feeder on the other side of the pole scraping seeds in his mouth. Got to figure out how to keep him off that one, too. He and Penelope have had a Mexican standoff all afternoon. Guess it’s time for cinnamon oil again.

A loud lonely train horn just traveled down the railroad tracks, mourningly echoing through the mist of the coming twilight. I love trains and always notice how their horn and whistling wheel sounds change with the seasons and times of day. The train’s musical laments matched the mood of the afternoon perfectly. Another train followed with a stretched out long wail singing a song of evening rain. Always lived where a train expresses itself and I love hearing them singing the day and night awake.

My cousin sent me a quote from Walden by Thoreau that reads,“Let us spend one day as deliberately as nature, and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito’s wing that falls on the rails. Let us rise early and fast, or break fast, gently and without perturbation; let company come and company go, let the bells ring and the children cry, — determined to make a day of it.” I love these thoughts! Then she wrote of “how life runs on a set of spiritual rails if we are able to avoid distractions and ground ourselves on his truth.”

These words got me to thinking of our spirituality as compared to the cold steel rails of the train tracks. The train tracks symbolize a directional path our faith follows. Some of us are lined up straight on the steel rails of our faith, hanging tight, riding the straight and narrow predetermined path. Others of us are hesitant to walk so straight a path and occasionally veer off on a sidetrack.

Throughout our life we experience trials that pull us off the rails of our spirituality and we flounder trying to get our faith back straight on the rails. We let the little changes and worries of everyday life distract our beliefs and send us down another path. We try to walk the path alone, without faith to show us the way, and we get lost on the journey.

I think God wants us to forge our own journey and wants us to enjoy life as we travel through it. He wants us to be a witness to our faith by our words and our actions, inviting others into the kingdom of God. The depth of our faith in God is a guiding factor on our path through life. We can have a clearer direction of our journey when we dedicate our life to Jesus. Our destination ends at the gates of heaven and we should not let life’s challenges change our direction. We are the conductors of our life but God is the engineer. He is always in charge of our destination.

“Life is a train that stops at no stations; you either jump aboard or stand on the platform and watch as it passes.” — Yasmina Khadra