This week an early evening train was late leaving Grand Central Terminal. The scheduled time to depart had arrived and gone, and the train was nowhere in sight. Trains at GCT sometimes have mechanical problems, from what I’ve experienced though, they’re not late. The crowd was growing bigger and bigger. As I looked at all the people standing in front of the track, I realized that people show their trust in others on a daily basis.
Not knowing what usually happens when a train is late, I stayed at the tail end of the crowd thinking that maybe the track number would change, and the crowd would rush en masse to a different location. The group of people next to me were not at all annoyed by the lateness of the train. Someone made a comment about the expected snowstorm this week. We noticed the woman with a beautiful tan and beautiful vacationer’s glow standing with us and looked in her direction. Someone asked her where she’d been. She said she was in Mexico, and we all wanted to know where in Mexico. “The Yucatan”, she said, and began talking about the Mayan culture, and then about the catholic church’s presence in Mexico, and about the many Mexican catholics who know little about the Mayan culture. A practicing catholic probably would have slipped away right about now. What could one say? We began our personal stories of growing up catholic. Oh, yes, it was interesting and strangely funny at the same time. And unusual in that there stood at that moment a random group of catholics waiting together and talking about their expereinces of g up c. www.mayacalendar.com/mayalink.html
The train came and off we went in different directions.