In the Beginning

Someone just told me that the distance between train rails in the U.S. is 4 feet, 8.5 inches because English immigrants designed the railroads. They used that measure because that’s the gauge of pre-railroad tramways, which were designed with the same tools used before that for wagon wheel spacing.

The wheel spacing was designed to fit ruts on bad English roads. The roads were originally designed by Rome to fit their legions. So their chariots formed the ruts and if others didn’t use them, they broke their wagon wheels.

Do you see where this is going? U.S. railway gauges (and I expect) also Canadian ones were formed based on Roman statistics originally designed to fit two war horses.

Further more, designers of the Space Shuttle boosters wanted to build larger ones but couldn’t because they had to bring them through railway tunnels only slightly larger that that narrow track whose size was determined by two horses….several centuries ago.

Now if you ever thought that your decisions didn’t matter to the world, think again.

Isaiah 40: 3-5- Thunder in the desert! “Prepare for God's arrival! Make the road straight and smooth, a highway fit for our God. Fill in the valleys, level off the hills, Smooth out the ruts, clear out the rocks. Then God's bright glory will shine and everyone will see it. Yes. Just as God has said (MSG).”

Prayer: Lord, when we think one little slip doesn’t matter, remind us that we, our family and many others might be in that rut for centuries to come. Give us grace to choose a new path, one not based on the ruts of ‘we always do it this way.’ Amen.

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