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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).

Last month while I was in California, my sister gave me a file folder stuffed full mostly of letters from the past 45 or more years.  It was my mother’s “Bill” folder – my sister has been the guardian of such things since my mother’s death two years ago.  It was a heavy-duty folder recycled from my father’s business. The last additions to the collection are mostly printed emails, but the early items are almost all hand written. They are my letters home. Or at least some of my letters home.  I am not sure of the criteria by which some letters were saved and others not. I suspect there were no criteria.  This letter was save and that one was not.

The oldest letter in the lot was written a week into the first quarter of my freshman year in college. It is among a couple dozen written during those four undergrad years. Continue reading →

The sign at the entrance to the Friends Cemetery near the Meeting House on Maple Avenue asks us to curb our dogs out of respect for those buried there. I appreciate the sentiment, but the dead don’t care.

Now, I think it’s best that we not allow our dogs to run among the graves, leap and catch Frisbees over the top of memorial stones, or do those other things dogs are prone to do when they’re running free.  Out of respect for the grieving who may have come to remember a loved one – out of respect for the memory of those buried in the graveyard – it’s best that we curb our dogs.  But the dead themselves?  They don’t care. Continue reading →

There’s a hole in the middle of the street, and I keep hitting it.  Of course, it is pothole season, but this is not so much a pothole as a mini sinkhole.  You may have hit it driving south on Bellevue half way between the Bella Tori and the church.  You can’t miss the thud.

So, I hit the sinkhole on the way to church, get to church and get busy, and not think about it until I hit it again the next time I am out. I don’t know how many thuds it took before I remembered to steer clear of the mini-sinkhole.  The car will probably need a frontend alignment pretty soon.

We hit potholes and sinkholes on our journeys through life, and sometimes it takes way too many thuds before we learn to steer clear of them. Continue reading →

A true story. Names and other details altered slightly.

The request came Sunday afternoon from Ted’s brother who lives in another state.  I did not know Ted or his brother. Would I please visit Ted who had been admitted to the hospital on Saturday and was facing a very serious diagnosis?  The brother and I had a further conversation on Monday and I went to see Ted on Tuesday.

You never know what you might face in a hospital cold call, but I liked Ted almost instantly and, yes, though never much of a church goer, he was happy to talk with a pastor. Ted had not made any room for church and not much room for God in his life because it hadn’t seemed as if there was much need for God or any need for the church.  Saturday had changed everything. Continue reading →