My Circus Train and Other Stories and Reflections from Sermons

By Jan Walker

As I go on in this life, a verse from Psalm 16 is my story: You will show me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy. That path has taken me on adventures wanted and unwanted, and led to dreams that came true and dreams that died along the way. That is my story so far. Ive come to know that each of us is a story and how we tell our story makes a difference as we walk through this world. We all have broken pieces of ourselves that weve left along the path, but we can decide whether to pick them up and put them together in a new way and go on, or we can go on with the broken pieces hurting us with every step. Thats our choice, and with the help of God and companions along the way, the grace and fullness of healing and joy can come.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Dec 3, 2014
• ISBN: 9781490861043

Jan Walker

Jan Lee Walker is an Episcopal priest and spiritual director who has served in parish, hospital and hospice ministry for over 35 years. She is a mother and grandmother, and lives with her two Scotties in Richmond, Virginia. She is an artist and writer of poems and loves her garden,filled with countless varieties of hostas, blooming pants and bushes. She is a consummate feeder of the great variety of birds appearing at her bird feeders, and also the acrobatic squirrels who are not daunted by any supposed squirrel-proof feeders. She has a deep interest in her family genealogy and has discovered many long ago relatives from very far back - from England, Ireland and Germany - who settled here, and had interesting lives, occupations and histories. She wishes that she could have known them all, and listened to their stories.

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Copyright © 2014 Jan Lee Walker.

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ISBN: 978-1-4908-6105-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-6106-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-6104-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014920936

WestBow Press rev. date: 12/2/2014

These sermons, stories, thoughts and reflections gathered together here were chosen out of hundreds of sermons and reflections over the years, and some are written in just the same words I used when telling the stories because I like the easy flow that comes from just telling a story, and painting a word picture in that way. In some though, I’ve changed the wording and the sentence structure while keeping the same message and meaning, and in this way two ways of presenting these stories, sermons and reflections have been woven together into this book.

This book is dedicated with love and thanksgiving to all who have taught me so much about living in this world with all the endings and beginnings, detours and adventures that have come upon us all. My life has been blessed beyond anything I could have imagined, because you have been my teachers, each in your own way. You gave me incredible gifts as you shared your own life stories with me, as we just walked along together in God’s amazing world. As each of you shared, one by one, one after another in your own different ways, so these stories, sermons and reflections are gathered together in that way same way too, one by one, one after another - each different, but somehow with the same messages of hope, faith, doubt and belief, sadness and joy, trust, blessings and surprise ... and thanksgiving too.

A Beginning

This all happened not too long after I had been ordained a priest in the diocese of Chicago. I was serving in a parish whose rector had suddenly left, and the young priest and I were put in charge of the parish for a year until a new rector was hired. This would never happen today. An interim priest would come to lead the people through the process of endings and new beginnings, but for some reason the bishop thought that we could do it, green as we were! Through that year the people there held us, and we held them. There was a lot of love and lay ministry, and that church still calls that time Camelot.

It was my day to make hospital calls, and that morning I saw that there were three people in three different suburbs. They were at quite a distance from each other, but I was pretty sure that I could see each person that morning and still get back to town by twelve thirty. About a week before, I had read in the paper that the circus train was going to be coming from Baraboo, Wisconsin, on the way to Chicago. They had printed a schedule as to when it would go through each suburb, and you could stand by the tracks and see it. I knew that I wanted to be there in our town at twelve thirty and watch the circus train go by. For some reason I really needed to see the circus train.

I saw the first two people in their hospitals and got to the third hospital right on schedule, but when I got to the woman’s room, she wasn’t in her bed. Her roommate was really agitated and told me that the woman had gone home to commit suicide. I tried to call the woman and her husband, but neither of them answered, so I drove to her house as quickly as I could. I had known this woman a long time, and I didn’t really think she was serious. I thought she was pretty frustrated with her illness and some problems that it had brought on, but I didn’t think she really meant it. But how could I really know that?

The road ran parallel to the railroad tracks for most of the way, and in each suburb there were crowds of people lining the tracks, waiting for the circus train. I thought, Well, maybe I’ll see it as I’m driving along. But it became clear that the train was late, and as I got closer and closer to town, I knew that I was going to miss it. I wasn’t going to see my circus train.

I got to the woman’s house, so I slowed down to turn into her driveway behind her car—and then I didn’t. I drove right past her house over to a place where I could walk down into a ravine that bordered the railroad tracks. I had taken my dog with me in my van that morning, and I thought that since I would probably be with the woman for a few hours, he would need to find a tree and relieve himself down there. I looked down the tracks to see if the train was coming, but it wasn’t. I went back to the woman’s house, and she hadn’t committed suicide, thanks be to God. I stayed a few hours. She was hurting and sad, and she hadn’t meant what she said to her roommate. I never told her that I didn’t come right away. When I left, there were no people waiting by the railroad tracks, and I knew that my circus train had come and gone.

A few weeks later I was driving back from a clergy conference with three women I was ordained with, and I told them that I really needed to make a confession about something I had done. I told them about the woman and confessed that I went to look for the circus train first, even though she may have really been suicidal, and I was ashamed. One of them said, Why do you think it was so important for you to see the circus train that day?

I really hadn’t thought about that, but when I did, I said, I think it was because in the midst of all that was going on in my life right then—so much to do in a big parish, all the responsibility and some hard personal things too—that just for a few minutes I wanted to feel like a child watching a circus train go by. I wanted to feel the magic and wonder of that, and I think I wanted to feel like somebody big was holding my hand right then and that I was being taken care of like a child … somehow. And my friends understood.

As we came near to the road that led to my church, I could see that we were going to have to stop for the freight train that was coming on the tracks we had to cross before we got there. And I said dejectedly, Well, here comes my circus train. And it was! It was my circus train coming back from Chicago! As we sat there right in front of the crossing gate—nobody there but us out there in the country—it very slowly went by, and we saw every circus wagon. People waved at us, and we waved at them. We laughed, cried, and thanked God for God’s incredible grace, goodness, kindness, forgiveness, and sense of humor.

I told people about my circus train when I preached that Sunday, and the next Sunday, a man came through the line after the service and handed me an envelope. He said, I was there when the circus train came through on that first day, and I took pictures of every wagon. I want you to have them. I’ve had them in a frame by my desk in every church where I’ve served over the years.

About five years after that, a man who had heard me talk about my circus train that Sunday and had later moved away, came back to visit the church one Sunday, having previously called the church to see if I was still there. I was, and so when he came that Sunday, he gave me a wonderful framed picture of the circus train that he had found at a yard sale, and he said, I bought it for you to see someday, and now I can give it to you.

The writer of the Book of Wisdom says to God, "Although you are sovereign in strength, you judge with mildness, and with great forbearance, you govern us. You open wide your hand and satisfy the needs of every living creature, for you have power to act whenever you choose. You fulfill the desires of those who call upon you; you hear our cry, and you help