In a quest to find new places to walk, I tried out the paths at a park on the Western side of Bradenton (which is a town south of Tampa) called the Robinson Preserve. The Robinson family had farmland out there long before the snowbirds flocked to the area, and in the early 2000’s donated some 500 acres to Manatee County. It was abandoned farmland overtaken by invasive vegetation. The County turned its energy towards restoration of native wetlands, and today the mangroves, salt marshes and tidal creeks have gone crazy; there are mullet jumping in glee in each body of water I saw. The restoration success was remarkable.

               I’m writing this because there I saw the alternative to a rant I wrote a couple of months ago here about the welcome sign at another (much smaller) park up in Dania (where I walk as well). There, you may remember, a pole with a bunch of emblems greets the walker. It has a bunch of don’ts posted on it in the form of some figure with a crossed-out circle on it. No bikes, no walking off path, no drones, no taking things, no…. Just a bunch of don’ts. And even though all you’ve brought are tennis shoes and a hat, you almost feel like you shouldn’t be there. I complained that this can be the way people feel about Christianity generally, and about a local church in particular, when we’re all about the rules, and the rules focus on the negative.

               So, at the Robinson Preserve I didn’t see this collage of red, black, and white signs. Instead, the slender posts there comprised a stack of brown signs, little announcements of what you can do. A watchtower you can climb, a bicycle, a hiker, a fish and a hook, a picnic table, and a shelter. It also gave a mile marker number on it. This made for a much more welcoming sign. I wanted to climb the tower, walk the trails, see the water where maybe others fished.

               And as I walked, I thought that this too is a better way to think of our church, and of our faith. That the Bible is not a set of rules so much as a long list of things that you can do to enrich your life. That the church, this church, is a place where you can do a long list of things. This is a place where you can sing as much as you want. Pray as much as you want. Serve as much as you want. Visit with fellow pilgrims. Eat (often donuts in the morning, sometimes ice cream after church, or lunch on Saturdays, or a snack at MECE, or peppermints if you come to my office, the list goes on.)  You can learn the Scriptures, go to Sunday School in its different age iterations. Some people play instruments, some sing in a choir. The list here would fill a fence-worth of those poles in the public parks.

               I think Jesus intended this kind of thinking. When accused of breaking the law, He didn’t say that He came to abolish the law, but rather to fulfill it and focus on a better way. The better way was a liberating way of seeing the positive, of seeing how to not just avoid hurting others, but focusing on how to love them and make their lives better. To not just try to avoid angering God, but instead to develop a delightful relationship with Him. The paths in both parks that I’m comparing here were great, but the emphasis at each of the parks was quite different. One was clearly better, and I think illustrative of the way Christ would have us be as individuals, as churches, as a people called Christians. Let’s focus on what we can do, not what we can’t.

Learning to know God and love people,

Craig

But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code. Romans 7:6 (NIV)

Last week I had to attend a meeting at a most unique site. I had been there many years ago as a tourist; now it served as a venue for a group of pastors to get together. Tucked away in what used to be Florida scrub and what is now a “Condo Canyon” is what they aptly call the Ancient Spanish Monastery.

Back in the 1950’s a remarkably wealthy and powerful man, who posthumously became famous because of his granddaughter’s kidnapping in 1974, bought a monastery in Spain. Only a fabulously wealthy person would think of dismantling, one stone block at a time, a cattle barn that had been at one time a Benedictine monastery.

And that’s what William Randolph Hearst did. But promptly after that, he had money troubles and never did anything about it. It sat in a million hay-filled crates (11,000 to be exact–I can’t imagine what that looked like) in Brooklyn for decades, until 1964, when two guys bought it and shipped it to North Maimi where it sits today.

Oh, the squirrels you could chase in this story!  Spanish history of the 12^th Century. The oligarchical nature of the Hearst family. Patty Hearst and the Symbionese Liberation Army. Twentieth century tourism in Florida. The Episcopal Church (which now owns it.) 

But for me? The last time I went there was probably 35 years ago. Janice and I were DINK’s. (Do you remember that acronym- Dual Income, No Kids.)  We went as tourists and learned the history of the place. This time, as an empty nester (is that the stage I am in now???), I experienced this site, meant to be situated on a hillside in rural Spain, as a little oasis in a sea of high-rise condos. Like Central Park in New York City, it now offers a little bit of green in a concrete jungle of 50 shades of gray.

I think that’s what the church is like nowadays. In a culture of “50 shades of gray” the church offers a green space, a place of respite and of moral dis-ambiguity, a place of peace amidst the chaos of traffic and commerce, a place of focused contemplation instead of bombastic entertainment.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest,” said Jesus two thousand years ago. Those who heard Him then had never heard a car horn, or seen a questionable movie, or sat in a cubicle with two monitors, a headset, glancing at text from a client while trying to eat lunch. The rest Jesus spoke of is found in an aspirational calling to focus on the important, not the immediate; to focus on the transcendent, not the entropy of the manufactured; to focus on the spiritual, not the economy, to focus on God, instead of self.

My prayer is that you find that rest here today.

Back from the monastery,

Craig

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”  Matthew 11:28-30 (NIV)

Driving around doing some errands for the church, I drove through the intersection of NW 2^nd and Jeffrey Streets. There, on the Northwest corner, I saw a sign that said, “North Park,” and then I saw a bunch of little stop signs and Yield signs and, well, I saw enough to make me turn around for a look see.

Another larger sign in the parking lot again said “North Park” but this one had two children on little bicycles as part of the logo. Having never seen such a thing, I felt a little surer about what this was, although the term “Traffic Garden” underneath that furthered the intrigue rather than clarifying it.

This is a pretend road structure built for children so that they can learn to stop at Stop signs, look and let others go by at a Yield sign, while either walking or riding a bicycle or, in the coolest of circumstances, driving a bunch of electric toy cars around (or, if you’re old like me, you can imagine those old Romper Room cardboard cars obediently following the teacher in the Fire Chief car.)

Nobody was there when I drove into the parking lot. I don’t know how long it’s been since somebody used it. But I thought it was cool, and, I suppose, a good idea. I do think there are some licensed drivers out there today that should be given a Romper Room car and sent to that Traffic Garden to take a refresher course.

That sign had more than just what I have described above. It had a bunch of rules. (Was there a Romper Room cop car?)  First rule: “Ride in the same direction as traffic signs and arrows.”  Good idea! Second rule: “Obey all traffic lights and signs.”  By the fourth one, it started sounding like “All I ever needed to know I learned in Kindergarten.”  “Yield to others and take turns.”  Number 6: “Watch out for others.”  Last one: “Have fun while learning to ride safely.”

These sound like life lessons to me. “Be nice, look out for others, take turns.”  And as I looked out over this miniature driving course, I thought that Sunday School, and Christian Preschool, is the whole-life version of this. There are rules – not “wear your helmet” so much as “obey your teacher.”  And others. But all on a scale that is safe and manageable from a child’s perspective.

I am eternally grateful to the adults who took time to teach me in Sunday School and later in Youth Group Bible Studies. I am grateful to those adults who led me in different ways while in controlled circumstances to prepare me for a world that is not always under control, and certainly often out of my control. I am the beneficiary of the “Traffic Gardens” offered to me along the way, even if they weren’t called that, or laid out for traffic specifically.

And, boy, am I grateful to the teachers that we have here at First Boca, who take their time now to prepare and deliver lessons, life lessons, Biblical lessons, music lessons for our children and adults alike. I say adults because I think we can learn things, test out things as adults here, in the controlled atmosphere of church. Those things become rehearsed tools when the circumstances demand. Deciding that God is not only omnipotent and omniscient but good, too – that’s a lesson learned at a Sunday School table that can be applied on the surgical table, just like singing “Jesus Loves Me” around the children’s table can ring in a child’s ears when surrounded by bullies at the cafeteria table.

Yes, church is a training ground for all of us, just like the Traffic Garden is for young pedestrians. I am grateful for the training grounds.

Let’s roll.

Craig

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms

and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Colossians 3:16 (ESV)

Walking by the hospital every day, I see a lot of interesting things. A Ferrari Purosangue (which I don’t think it is!) A drone show at FAU (I walk to the top of the three garage towers the hospital has.) Interesting groups of people out at night. Etc. Today, it started with the honking of geese. We don’t get that many honking geese here in Boca, so I thought it odd to hear this. I couldn’t see them at first, but it turns out they had chosen to honk where a lot bigger monsters could honk back, the middle of the intersection of Meadows Road and NW 13^th Street. They chose to argue with each other about where they were going right under the stop light!

               As I approached the intersection, a lady pulled into the intersection, as the light had turned in her favor. But halfway through the intersection, she had to stop so she wouldn’t run over the honkers. Now, I’m not going to argue with the wisdom of what she did next. But it did get me to thinking.

               She stopped her car and got out of the car to physically shoo them to the other side of the road. As she opened her door, a car that could go through almost clipped her door, and pretty near took her, too. That disaster avoided, she went on to try corralling the two geese.

               To wax theological (if not eloquently) about this, this woman was coming to the rescue of two birds that had gotten themselves into trouble. And at her own peril. That seems like what Jesus would do. And what He did. He endangered Himself to save us. We all, like geese, have found ourselves fallen astray (I’m pretty sure that’s how Isaiah put it) and find Jesus having put Himself in harm’s way for our sake.

               But that’s not the end of the story. Just because these honkers were facing the South side of 13^th, and just because that’s where this good Samaritan tried to lead them to, that does not mean that that’s where they wanted to go or went. No, she found herself chasing these geese farther and farther down 13^th, not off of 13.^th  (I think this is where the phrase “wild goose chase” came from). Again, not waxing eloquently but theologically, how many of us, having experienced the grace of the Savior, having had a Redeemer stop and help lead us according to His will towards the safety of where we ought to be, instead insist on randomly wandering from here to there to the dismay of God and our own peril? This scene unfolding in front of me just seemed like an illustration of the Christian walk.

               I took advantage of this scene to get myself, as a pedestrian, across this perilous intersection, and found myself walking in front of two golf carts driven by hospital personnel, all laughing out loud (LOL) at the, at the, at the woman! They were laughing at the good Samaritan’s attempts at helping these poor critters! I thought it unfair, particularly as they did not get out to help. And then, of course, I wondered why I didn’t help either. Again, I thought: “How many people laugh at us, as the lost geese, and how many mock the Shepherd because of us?”  (What is the herder of geese called?)

               By the time I was on the side of the intersection where I might have been useful, she had succeeded at herding these two wayward geese off the road. She got back into her car which had kind of blocked any traffic from going, the mockers got back to the hospital, and I continued the rest of my walk.

               I obviously most closely related to the geese in this story. I can wander in life and find myself at intersections where I’m not sure which turn to take. I have been the recipient of God’s grace and direction in those moments and have experienced God’s love and care through other people. I am eternally grateful to the Lord and those people. Otherwise, I’d still be in the intersection.

Back home,

Craig

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and

the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. Isaiah 53:6 (KJV)