My Day in Newark Penn Station

A fire on an Amtrak train early this morning resulted in the cancellation of my trip home to DC which was supposed to leave around 9:30 am.

I got to spend the day in an urban train station with nothing to do but hang out and watch people.  And it occurred to me that Donald Trump would hate it here.

[Note: These are pastoral observances, not political ones.]

The president has told us numerous times about the kind of humans he likes and the kind of humans he doesn’t like.  And so I’m glad he wasn’t here with me today.

In my eight hours waiting at Newark Penn, this is what I saw:

Mostly people with darker skin than mine wearing a variety of fashions from buttoned down collars to every kind of t-shirt (Knicks, NASA, a picture of Santa above the words “Believe.”) Torn jeans and hot pants. At least one bikini top. 

Travelers with all kinds of challenges like wheelchair riders and folks with mobility canes and seniors pushing walkers with stuffed carryalls attached and little kids with too much energy to sit around and wait for a train.

People with psychological situations like the young man who randomly yelled every couple of hours about a bear, to the folks who were definitely talking to themselves rather than talking into ear pods.

People who were very short and very tall, emaciated and heavyset, bearded and clean shaven, gray haired and lime green haired. 

What I heard were recognizable and unrecognizable accents.  I’m confident that most continents were represented.

Towards the end of my day, I phoned a friend after learning that her sweet dog had passed away.  I had no qualms about weeping in a train station because I lived there now – and when the call ended, I noticed that the woman next to me was also weeping. 

 “I’m so sorry about your friend’s dog,” she said.  And then she told me that her own dog had passed away suddenly last summer and she was still upset about it.  Bella had been her best friend’s dog and that friend had died of cancer at the age of 35 so when Bella died, it was like losing her last connection to her friend.  $@%# cancer.

I showed her photos of Zuzu and photos of a different dog named Zuri who graced the presence of our Presbytery office. Zuri passed away suddenly on Tuesday.  And I showed her pictures of our Spense who died in 2025 and she showed me pictures of her new dog Luna wearing a little sombrero.

And then she left to catch her train.  We didn’t know each other’s names but we knew all the dog’s names. 

And when my train finally arrived for boarding, I thought about Donald Trump who never had a dog or a cat according to biographers.  And he has said he doesn’t like immigrants or disabled people but he says he does love handsome men and beautiful women.

I was blessed to observe America in an urban train station today. And as the trained pulled out of the station, my σπλαγχνίζομαι (splagchnizomai) was on overload. And I I felt really sad for the powerful man who has no idea what he’s missing.