The Sunny Train

Photo by Ilyuza Mingazova on Unsplash

I’ve been thinking about the idiom “train of thought.” It’s a pretty accurate way to describe the way thinking works. Thoughts don’t usually occur singularly but in a connected stream; they are not stationary, but moving. They move in a particular direction, and they have their own interior logic, their own network of tracks, their own stops and stations along the way. 

More importantly, every train of thought has a destination. 

I read a powerful essay by a friend a few years ago, in which thoughts that enter our minds are compared to train tickets. Each thought represents a choice: do we take the ticket and board the train?  Or do we recognize that a particular ticket has a nefarious quality and ask for a refund? 

Consider the thought “I am a total failure.” I have been on this train plenty of times. It doesn’t lead anywhere good, though I have to admit that when I first board this train, it has a bracing, astringent quality. 

I usually get off this train at “languishing”, “incapacitation”, or “emotional eating.” Further down the tracks, there is “suicidal ideation.” It’s a pretty remote stop, but you’d be surprised how many trains end up there, how many people debark there, walking around in that wasteland. 

There are a few basic questions you can ask yourself when you’re on a particular train of thought: 

1. What is the premise of this thought? 

Asking whether or not a particular train of thought is true doesn’t work for me, because when I’m on the train, I find its internal logic compelling, if not seductive. Once you’ve taken the ticket and boarded the train, you have already accepted the premise, and the direction of the train flows from the premise. When I am contemplating getting off the train at “Shave My Head and Join a Cult,” for instance, I have to backtrack to find the premise–the initiating thought that landed me on this train. It’s usually something like this:

“I’m a weirdo and everyone hates me.”

Here is the second question you can ask yourself:

2. What is this train’s ultimate destination? 

If you follow a train long enough, you usually end up at one of two places: Life or Death. 

Basically, what I’m getting at, is this question: 

Were these tracks laid by God or by Satan? 

This question may seem quaint to some, but in my life it has pretty much become the most important question I ask about anything. 

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There is an old song by the Carter family that most people are familiar with called “Keep on the Sunny Side.” I added this song to my set list last year, and I found it to be personally helpful. When some distressing thing happens–or I am attacked by gloomy, pessimistic thoughts–I tell myself “Keep on the Sunny Side,” and I look for a train with a bit of sun coming through the windows. 

Keeping on the sunny side doesn’t mean we deny the dark realities in the world. It means that, with God’s help, we “gird up the loins of our minds” and make ourselves strong and hopeful in the face of darkness. It means that, even if we pass through storms, our train is firmly fixed on a track that leads to a hopeful destination. 

I have a friend who is one of the sunniest people I know. Even her hair is the color of sunlight. Her life has been filled with sorrows and afflictions that, from the outside, seem crushing. But she isn’t crushed. She faces each challenge with strength, resourcefulness, perseverance, and a sense of humor. 

Now some of us–myself included–might suspect ourselves to be more serotonin-challenged than my sunny friend. To us I say, when serotonin fails, try a little Vitamin D. Drag those gloomy, rain-soaked thoughts out into the sunlight and let them dry and disinfect. Skip the metaphorical sunscreen. 

Speaking of metaphors.

Unfortunately, every metaphor breaks down, and I am afraid mine have become impossibly mangled. 

Therefore, I will close with verse 3 of “Keep on the Sunny Side,” which says what I am trying to say much more concisely:

“Let us greet with a song of hope each day

Though the moment be cloudy or fair; 

Let us trust in our Savior always 

Who keepeth everyone in His care.”