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Almost home.  I had made the Bear Tavern cut from Route 202 to Interstate 95 just across the Delaware River in New Jersey.  A quick trip down 95 into Pennsylvania and Route 1, and I’d be in Langhorne.  It had been a great Men’s Retreat at Tuscarora on the Delaware River not far from the Water Gap.  I had gone up and back on the New Jersey side.

As I approached I-95 from Bear Tavern Road, though, there was no I-95.  Oh, yeah. The big project.  Interchanges and overpasses further down the river and a new route – really, the right route – for 1-95 from Pennsylvania to New Jersey. Finally.  But that means that I-95 up near Bear Tavern Road in New Jersey and down to Route 1 in Pennsylvania – and more – is now or soon will be I-295.  They’ve already changed the signs in New Jersey.  And that’s the problem.

Oh, it’s not that I mind a name change. 295 works for me.  It’s the signs. They are really confusing.  As you leave Bear Tavern Road to head home in Langhorne, the sign pointing to the freeway entrance reads “Philadelphia, 295 North.” We locals know that Philadelphia is about 35 miles south of Bear Tavern Road in Ewing Township, New Jersey. It just seems wrong to be getting on I-295 North as you head south toward Philadelphia.

Not to be outdone by their colleagues in New Jersey, when the PennDot crews get around to changing the signs in Pennsylvania, I-295 North, traveling south through New Jersey, will become I-295 West traveling south through Pennsylvania.  South by any other name is south.

This article explains the whole thing as well as any I’ve read.  My suggestion is they call the road from Langhorne to Bear Tavern and beyond “I-295 Clockwise,” and from Bear Tavern and beyond to Langhorne “I-295 Counterclockwise.” I might be less confused.

Pity the poor road sign engineers who work for PennDot or the State of New Jersey.  They have rules they have to follow, and my guess is the rules wouldn’t allow for a clockwise and counterclockwise designation for an interstate highway. I still think it’s a good idea.

Of course, no matter what the road sign says, you’re headed south, not north, when you’re traveling from Bear Tavern Road to Philadelphia.

We live in a culture, a world, where the road crews are changing the signs all the time. Selfishness is rebadged self-reliance, revenge called justice, apathy renamed understanding, grace is luck and love is a lack of conviction.

The highway crews can put post new signs. They can’t move the North Star.  We can play with words, calling our weakness strength and our confusion compassion.  We can’t make love – self-giving, self-denying, long-suffering, always-trusting love – anything other than the still more excellent way to which God in Christ is calling us.

Next time you head towards Bear Tavern Road, don’t believe the signs.  You’re going north. Next time you’re confused or in doubt, have a decision to make or a wrong to confront, don’t take the advice of the pop priests of a shallow culture. Head straight toward the Bright Morning Star (2 Peter 1:3 and Revelation 22:16).