SERMONS FOR ADVENT, CHRISTMAS AND EPIPHANY (SUNDAYS 1-8 IN ORDINARY TIME)
There is nothing lonelier than standing on the railroad track in a small town waiting for a train to come from somewhere in the distance. Even in flat country, you can always hear the train before you can see it. There is something about the conduit of the tracks carrying the sound. On a dark, cloudy, dreary day, I stood at a barren crossroads with a middle-aged man, waiting for a train to bring the coffin containing the body of his oldest son who had been killed in Vietnam. We didn't say much. We were the only people there. I knew what kind of hopes he had had for that boy.
