I Whip My Hair

I’ve always been drawn to the wrong side of the tracks. Maybe it’s the fact that things don’t seem as polished on the wrong side of the tracks, the same way I find an old, tattered book much more interesting and valuable than a new one, or the the way a thin layer of dust on the shelf makes everything feel like home. Maybe it’s the fact that people seem more interesting on the wrong side of the tracks. They’re so much more willing to share their entire stories... because they have fewer reasons to hide anything. Or maybe it’s just the trains. I’ve always loved trains. It’s just that... on the right side of the tracks, there are too many lines to toe, too many appearances to keep up. Don’t confuse what I’m saying with right and wrong. I’m not talking about good and evil. I’m not talking about sin, necessarily. I’m talking about sometimes accidentally hanging a left when you should have gone right.

You see, Isaiah said that Jesus would come from Galilee. And Galilee was the wrong side of the tracks. Jesus couldn’t have come from Galilee... but he did. He became a light in the dark that was all around him.

I like the wrong side of the tracks because it’s darker. On the right side of the tracks there’s so much light. It’s beautiful, but it’s blinding... incessant. On the the wrong side of the tracks you have to work harder to see the light. You have look farther. But once you find it... you’ve never valued the light so much until you’ve been in the dark, the thick, black of nothing. It’s only in the darkness that the light starts to regain its meaning, it’s beauty, it’s necessity. I pray that all of us work to wander to the wrong side of the tracks in our lives, to bring light to the darkness, to help other see.