The Real Thing

It’s just like the movies!, exclaimed our movie buff.

It’s just like the books!, exclaimed our book worm.

We just boarded the long anticipated Hogwarts Express at King’s Cross Station near Diagon Alley on the way to Hogsmead. We are squeezed in our little compartment with a family from Taiwan who are taking every-angle-selfies with their smart phone. 

I stare at my children, suddenly stunned by the realization that all they know about the trains is what they learned and saw in movies and books.

They have no first-hand knowledge, no first-hand experience of an ordinary train!! At least not the one that they can remember. I know that they were on trains in Europe as babies. But that was long time ago.

Trains were such an integral part of my life in Europe - the cheapest and most convenient mode of transportation. I feel like I spent more than half of my life listening to the steady rhythm of wheels on tracks cris-crossing the old continent. One can say that my blood runs along the train tracks rather than through the blood vessels.  

But I can’t recall any recent instance where we as a family or ether of our kids were on the train except for the airport shuttles. And airport shuttles certainly don’t count.

I shake my head in disbelief and mutter to no one in particular,

It’s… it’s just like the real thing.

What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life— and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us— what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ. These things we write, so that our joy may be made complete. I John 1:1-4