Notes from the Journey

Religion

February 12, 2010

Anonymous Weatherford Democrat The Weatherford Democrat Fri Feb 12, 2010, 05:30 AM CST

WEATHERFORD — Bridge-love

John Paul Carter, Democrat Columnist

In 1938 — the year I was born — the highest highway bridge in Texas (177 feet) was completed over the Neches River, linking Port Arthur and Orange. On Sunday afternoons during World War II, our family and friends would occasionally pile into our old car and drive over that magnificent span, which seemed to me like one of the wonders of the world. I still get excited just thinking about it!

Bridges have fascinated me ever since. As a child, my adoption story of being brought home to Texas from Memphis created an imaginary bridge over the Mississippi River in my mind. Several years ago, while visiting our granddaughters in New York City, we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge. The railroad and highway bridges across the Pecos, near where my son serves in the Border Patrol, are breathtaking.

However, for sheer enjoyment, there’s no bridge quite like the new viaduct over the railroad tracks on the city’s recently completed Jack Borden Way. No longer do we have to endure the traffic jams to get to Santa Fe. I can go up North Denton Road, cross Fort Worth Highway at the light, and be at the light on Santa Fe in three minutes (it used to take at least 10). And because lots of our doings, including church, are to the south and southwest of where we live, the new road and bridge really help — especially for someone like me who’s always running late.

At Valentines, I’m reminded of another more important bridge: Love. Paul described this bridge-love as being “patient … kind … not envious, boastful, arrogant, nor rude … not insisting on its own way … not irritable or resentful … not gloating over other people’s sins, but delighting in the truth … bearing, believing, hoping, enduring all things … the one thing that still stands when all else has fallen.” (1Cor. 13)

Such love transports us to life’s most meaningful experiences. It’s also “a bridge over troubled waters” that’s been laid down for us and that we’re called upon to lay down for others. Truth be told, none of us would have survived our entrance into this world had it not been for that “original grace” called love. And we’re nurtured throughout our lives by past generations of love and care.

Moreover, the love we give in this life will provide a living connection to those we leave behind. Even after all who knew us are gone, the legacy of our love will continue its work. As Thornton Wilder wrote, “There is a land of the living and a land of the dead, and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.”

On the walls of the catacombs in Rome where they secretly worshipped because of persecution, the early Christians left written expressions of their faith. One such inscription bestowed upon Jesus one of Caesar’s titles: “Pontifex Maximus” – “Supreme Bridge Builder.” Indeed, God’s love in Jesus is the bridge that allows us to cross into life and shows us how to pass that love on. Thanks be to God!

Lord, may your love through us bridge the gap for our world. Amen.

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John Paul Carter’s “Notes from the Journey” appear in the Democrat’s Religion page on the second and fourth Fridays of each month. Carter, an ordained minister who attends Central Christian Church, may be contacted by writing him at 107 Bent Oak Road, Weatherford, 76086.

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