Maybe Pigs Will Fly

What would you do if you were in charge of repairing ties on the railroad and while you were busy working and minding your own business, someone from the local grocery store ran up to you and told you that a train was coming and that you had better get off the track? Would you get upset and ask the man why he wasn't minding his own business? Would you question his veracity because he was a grocery store owner and not a railroad man? Would you get angry and tell him to quit interrupting you in your work?

I belong to a gardening club. We receive helpful and informative e-mails about different gardening issues and problems. The people in charge of the forum are knowledgeable in their field and are able to answer difficult questions and give sound advice for beginners as well as seasoned gardeners. One day I received an e-mail through the gardening club that wasn't connected to gardening. The serious nature of the issue caused the group leader to want to warn his friends in the group of impending changes that might affect them. Sadly, there were some people who were angry that he would use the gardening forum to spread the word about something political. He spent the next few days apologizing to people and trying to get the site back on track. So, the train is coming and they get angry at the man who tells them because he's not a railroad man. Too bad.
I'm not a railroad man. I don't have a degree in train wrecks. In fact, I've never even seen one. But my eyes work extremely well and I can certainly see when a train is coming. So, what would you do if you were standing in your grocery store, or garden shop, or house and you happened to look out the window and see a train coming, and in the next instant you looked down the track a little way and you saw your friend or neighbor working at repairing the track? Would you say to yourself that he probably already knows that the train is coming, so my telling him again would only insult him? Or would you think that it isn't really your responsibility to warn people about trains; after all, you only run the grocery store, not the railroad? Or would you just call the people at the railroad station, because it's really their problem?

Paul Revere was a copper-smith. He didn't know about revolutions. He had no experience in war. He wasn't a politician or statesman. But he could see that a train was coming and he wasn't about to let his friends and neighbors get run over by it. He got on his horse and in the middle of the night and rode door to door waking people up and warning them of the danger that was coming, and they didn't get angry at him because he was only a copper-smith, or because the news was not good news.
In ancient Greece there was a messenger who brought bad news to the people, so they killed the messenger. That sounds pretty stupid, doesn't it? Unfortunately, it still happens today. If someone brings us news of impending trouble, we shoot at him with ridicule or scorn. We try to find a reason to not believe him, like for instance, he's a grocery store owner and doesn't know anything about railroads, so we don't have to believe him. On the other hand, when the owners of the railroad tell us, in spite of the warnings of our friends and neighbors, that there is no train scheduled on that track and that we have nothing to worry about, we believe them, even though we know that they are bankrupt and cannot pay us and probably have a motive for wanting to be rid of us... via train wreck.

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe there is no train. Maybe I'm just imagining it. Maybe the railroad company is kind, benevolent, and helpful. And maybe pigs will fly.