Lamping Out

The Harvest season comes to an end and the dark evenings are upon us.  But London doesn't easily sleep.

Although London has long had all-night buses it now has all night underground trains.  As well as being helpful to people who must travel at night, it certainly doesn't make hectic London any more restful.

And although there are currently only a few lines on two nights it threatens the unique moment - unknown to all but a handful of Londoners - of lamping out.

I thought about this the other day when I hurried down a passageway only for the doors on the train to shut in my face.  It is not a rare thing for London travellers.  Except on one train.

The exact exception to this common experience takes place nightly when the last train runs.  A member of staff stands on the platform, another in the entry upstairs.  On the platform the train does not leave until anyone counted into the station has boarded the train, whereupon it is lamped out.  Instead of the passenger being held up by the leaving train, the passenger becomes the focus, the pivotal crux of the leaving train.  

And I thought about it again when I heard the harvest hymn about 'all is safely gathered in'.  The story of harvest but the metaphor of salvation.  For not one of God's elect will be missing; for every believer a place, for every place a believer.  Continuation of the current universe is because there are still sheep that are lost, still prodigals in a far country who must come home.