It's been a long two weeks for me at school, especially with Hell week (that period between Thanksgiving break and exams), when every professor seems hell-bent on making sure you're as busy as possible. It's an exciting time, indeed. Though with exams and last minute homework wrapped up, I'm relieved to have made my way home.
While I was on the train heading home, a young man (about my age) kept asking me what I thought were simple questions about the 364 train's normal stops, times, etc...things I probably would have asked my first or second time taking a train. I should have been more patient with him, but like all people too wrapped up in a good book, I was a bit sharp with my replies. I wish I wasn't.
I was trying to read Dorian Grey, sans the infrequent interruption, and started to yawn. I was tired, it'd been a long week, it was cold on this insufferable train as the temperature in Michigan dropped to 20 degrees, matched by the fact that the train had the air running (though I'm not sure why). I decided I'd rather catch up on the sleep I'd been missing since August 25th (the week school started).
I took off my Crombie and used it as a blanket, but it wasn't much help. I was just nodding off to sleep, still shivering, when a young man reached across the aisle and laid his blanket over me. Why. No, seriously, why? I couldn't understand why someone who was clearly as cold as I was would give up his blanket for no good reason. Maybe he hadn't detected the monotone irritation in my voice as I answered his questions, and this was his form of gratitude for my answers? Dubious at best. So, the question remains, why?
When I finally awoke, about two minutes before we arrived at Flint, I handed the young man back his blanket, and he handed me a well used prayer book. I couldn't. I wouldn't. It was his and I have one myself. Still, I was in a sort of awe to see a Christian (a layperson no less) so excited in the word that he was reading it on the train (which I only realized looking back on it).
A kind and fervent Christian in an unkind age? A shock.
I really wish I would've been kinder. He seemed anxious about the train ride, and I remember my first time freshman year. It can be nerve-racking.
Now I'm done, at home, and it's nice to be sitting in the living room watching "Christmas in Connecticut" with my mother. It's snowing and it's "beginning to look a lot like Christmas."(Different movie references, but oh well.) I hope, that this Christmas season, as I celebrate the advent of Christ, that I have moments like this, to show little bits of grace.
Merry Christmas.
