The inner drama was like a switch changing from 'content' to 'I want' and quickly, 'I lack'. Not even that I did want very much, but once the switch was thrown all the repressed wanting was activated for every thing I've ever been denied. And that force seems stronger than my will. I can't choose 'abundance' then, no matter how many self-help books I've read in my life. So I was watching that inner drama with more awareness than before. And I didn't feel very good about it, or myself.

So I've been thinking about how I relate to people. I want to relate to everyone with love, but SO OFTEN there is some situation of wanting. Basically wanting love in some form. Wanting to fit in, wanting to be liked, wanting to be approved of, successful. I shoot myself in the foot that way, because then I get in my own way and am no service to others. I'm really grieving this. I want to find my power - in situations where it matters. I like being in situations where I am the leader or the teacher or the hero somehow - then people give me power and I feel approved of and it's all good. But I want to be able to feel my power in confrontive situations, when people don't like me. That is when things can be transformed (and also when you can go acting like a fool and hurt others). I want that for myself and instead I run up against my limits.

And so I've been living out the same drama that drives people to their God. 'I want' equals materialism, but it also equals thirst for God. 'I lack' calls for God to fill the space. But not even God can fill 'I lack.' Instead, we have to throw that switch back over to 'abundance.'

I have some power over that switch with myself. If I remain conscious, I can remember the that I can indeed always choose how I respond to situations, which keeps me away from the 'I lack' setting. But I have even more power with other people. So long as my own tangles don't wrap me up, I can set up an emotional climate with the people around me that help them remember they are secure. So I pray for help to do that as a leader.   more »

My Kenny G moment . . .

Now I'm not someone who listens to music as "background," unless I'm SO familiar with it that it moves me on some automatic sub-conscious level. I CAN multi-task with music as a soundtrack, but it becomes my main emotional animator while I'm doing something else. If there is music on (for example) while driving and conversing, I often give the music the lead voice in my brain.

I'd never heard of Kenny G (I don't listen to much of that genre) but one day I was in a travel-induced stress and boarded a United Airlines flight and this sound washed over me and completely changed the moment. 'What is THAT?!' I said to myself. I liked it.

The truth is there is a wide range of good music that could have affected me at that moment. The anxiety of travel is constrictive, pulling my body tight as I worry about missed connections and things that can go wrong. Music takes me on emotional flights - good music, anyway. It also has intrusive power, in the best sense - it will butt into whatever grumph of a snitch I've worked myself into, transforming it, making me happy.

In that moment, the soaring saxophone of Kenny G was exactly right to lift me into bliss.   more »

I reconnected with an old friend Laura who was very important to me when I was in college. Her letters have prompted me to look back at how my spirituality has changed over the last ten years or so.

I think what I have reworked is my expectations of community and people. My disappointment with Quakerism was being hit with the difference between what we Quakers say we aspire to and what we are actually being - normal humans. I've needed to make space for brokenness and healing and not healing yet and the wide category of "things that happen that I don't understand or are not according to my plan."

I was disillusioned about leadership roles because I wanted others to be as on board and committed as I was. I still feel that, even when I'm not in a leadership role, but I guess I have more of a sense of humor about it. (I've lately become aware of just how uneducated and unknowing politicians of my acquaintance are . . . It astounds me . . . And reminds me that there is work to do of communication and education.) So it's less about "The Cause" now and more about the individual relationship, starting with wherever they are at. But I don't give up easily on wanting things to be perfect, or at least measure up to my expectations (because obviously MY expectation are what's important in any situation, right?). And I've got a streak of British judgmentalism I can't exercise, especially when it concerns myself.

I've become less focused on seeking and discerning the spirit's leading.

At some point (actually I remember the moment - it was on an American Airlines flight, when I had time to think) the message came into my head that God was not leading me on to the next step in my life because it was time for ME to step up to the plate - that I needed to develop my own will and desire and that being a human is to be a co-creator, not only a follower. It was time for me to step out.

I've also become much more humble about leadings. First of all, I'm far more aware that I could be sensing impulses from my own ego and fear and pride. Easy to dress that up in nice spiritual language and I'm sure I have. I also trust less my own ability to discern. And I take it much less seriously - I no longer think that it is crucial, critical that I follow the leading because (the unspoken idea) everything depends on me. No, I'm just not that important. And, even more importantly, if I make a mistake (willfully or unintentionally), the world can handle it. Just move on.

(That's a very different attitude than many people around me have who say "there are no mistakes." I say instead, it's OK to make mistakes because you can handle it. You move on and mistakes become grist for what follows. Not to say there isn't trauma and distress.)   more »

In the department of fun and imagination and dreaming – with a base of vision – is this exercise of reworking the freight train schedule of Vermont Rail System as if all freight traffic that could went over the rails. All of this is based on traffic that is already moving, just waiting to be hauled by a train. It would be quite profitable. The catch is that it would take sizeable capital expenditures to realize this plan, and while the return on that investment would be better than that realized for road expenditures, it would not satisfy the capital markets.

The major through trains are the following:
Selkirk NY – Burlington – St. Albans (with mixed freight, autos and intermodal)
Mechanicville NY – Syracuse NY (CSX intermodal connector)
Selkirk NY – Brattleboro – St. Johnsbury – Orleans-Newport
St. Johnsbury-Groveton connection
New Haven CT – Orleans – Newport (connecting with MMA)
Selkirk NY – Florence (mostly Omya traffic for Selkirk)
Florence – Glens Falls NY (mostly Omya traffic for NY paper mills & CP)
Bellows Falls – Ticondaroga NY


In addition to switchers and locals there are bulk hauler shuttles that run all day long (maximizing car utilization) as mini unit trains (as short as just a few cars, but usually more like 10 cars). These haul aggregate, logs, wood chips and garbage. Cars used will be quick unloading bottom dump gondolas strengthened to haul logs so trains can be loaded in both directions and cars shuffled around from job to job. Because car utilization is so high and the trains are moving most of the time, these shuttles can make money (when operated with a crew of one person) even if the haul and train length is short.

You will note I’ve taken the liberty (as long as we are dreaming a bit) to expand the VRS system in a few directions that make sense. These could be services operated in cooperation with connecting railroads or outright takeovers.

The plan below assumes that main lines are operated at 40 mph (that’s the bulk of the capital expenditures) with new sidings as needed to facilitate operations and switches that are used every day equipped with time-saving radio controlled power switches.

Because of the power switches, improvements in track configurations and changes in switching procedures, time spent switching in this schedule is considerably reduced. Some of this could be because I’m not quite as familiar with operating requirements as I might be. Through freights will be blocked to drop set-offs off the rear with no switching, just a simple uncoupling and break test. Yard personnel with have a new FRED (flashing rear end device) ready to stick on the new last car.

Lowering time spent switching brings considerable improvements in productivity for all of the other cars in the through train that don’t need to wait as well. Faster timings will allow intermodal service to be operated competitively on the Selkirk-Burlington route.   more »