train ticket

Imagine having a train ticket but not knowing how to read it. You’re pretty sure you have the right train because the schedule says it’s leaving at the right time and the city you want to go to seems to be one on the list of places it stops. But when you look at your ticket it’s like reading Italian!

Carrozza 001
Posto A
Sedere 25Fi
Corridoio laterale

So carrozza could mean something like carousel. Maybe it’s the first section on the car when you get on. But how do you know which car to get on to? Maybe carrozza is the car number. But do they mark the car number on the outside of the train? Not on the ones in Germany. Hmm.

And what about posto A? On the track across from me there is a big B hanging from the roof. And if I look farther down the track to the right there is a big C. Is there no A? I look to the left. Oh ya, there it is. Way down at the end of the track. Maybe that’s what the posto means. But those A, B and C signs aren’t hanging over my track. Does it apply anyway?

Sedere. That’s got to be seat, doesn’t it? That seems like the only logical conclusion. 25Fi. What is Fi?

And corridoio laterale? Lateral corridor? What the heck does that mean? Hopefully it’s not important!

Here comes the train. Second class cars fly by first with a big 2cl on the side of them. There’s another number underneath on this train. What is it for? The numbers are getting smaller, 6, 5, 4… and there is a little symbol underneath them. It looks like a… my head snaps from left to right, following the symbol. It’s a train car… so maybe that 001 IS the car number!

Here comes 1st class, a big 1cl on the side along with a 3… then a 2… then a 1. Our car. Let’s try it, it’s under the big A, it seems logical. We climb our way on, dragging our weight-limit-met luggage. Looks like the numbers are right. Thank God we don’t have to truck this luggage all the way through the train like in Zurich!

25 and 26. Wow these numbers jump fast! There they are! But it looks like there are people in our seats. What the heck!? Ooooooooh, no they aren’t. They are in 23 and 24. Fi means finestra! Window. There are our window seats, tucked in behind two sixtyish year old business men on their way to Milano.

Sweet! We have seats!

I was thinking today about how sometimes life feels a bit like this train ticket reading experience. I have the ticket but I don’t always understand what it is telling me. I am often traveling in a state of “I think I know what I’m doing… kinda” or “This might mean…” you fill in the blank; deathly afraid of getting it wrong. Making the wrong choice, saying the wrong thing, doing the wrong thing, being the wrong person.

I’m slowly, very slowly, beginning to understand that I can’t do anything without doing something. That was profound hey! What I mean is, I have to make a decision and do it. If I’m wrong, I move from there, knowing that wasn’t what I wanted. If I have an opinion or a thought I need to share it, trusting that if people don’t agree or if I’m wrong, that’s ok.

We’re not robots. We’re not all the same. We’re not supposed to be. On the days when I feel like I might know what the ticket means but I’m not really sure, I need to talk it out with the people I’m in relationship with and let them help me figure out what’s going on in my brain. That includes talking to God about it. He’s usually pretty good about finding ways to communicate what He’s thinking, whether it’s through people, His word or His Holy Spirit. He doesn’t want us running in circles aimlessly any more than we do. He’s got better things for us than that.

Just a thought for the next time you’re not sure if you understand what’s going on… but you think you might…

*thanks for the awesome pictures trace (tracey l heppner photography)