B is for BRIDGE

There's a large metal bridge about three or four miles from our house. It spans the River Blackwater near a large country house and because of tits narrowness, it is unwise for two vehicles to pass on it and probably impossible anyway. When I was young, it looked really huge and terrifying,. partly because the approach from both sides is shrouded in trees and creates a dark and mysterious scene. To be truthful, I was never really happy until we had travelled beyond its length and in retrospect, I'm not sure if it was just the sight of the metal semi-circles rising on both sides, the significant drop to the river or the actual expanse of water that I tried hard to avoid having eye contact with as we crossed. Probably a mixture of all three. The metal sides rose to a height of about ten to fifteen feet and were a mass of bars at various angles, like two huge one hundred and eighty degrees protractors stuck on to the two sides of a road. There were warning signs on both approaches, indicating the need for care and to not attempt to enter the bridge if another vehicle was already crossing. Since those early days, I have been across its length hundreds of times, but I still remember how I felt all those years ago and there is still a certain uneasiness within that no other bridge creates.

That apprehension is hardly helped by a story my dad often told of how when he was a teenager, he had once climbed to the very top of the one of the sides and dived into the water below. In itself, this was a feat of extreme bravery for the drop must be all of twenty five feet but it was also bravery without much prior planning as he couldn't swim a stroke. Often the thought went through my mind, how he had coped when he hit the water or was it not so deep at the time, in which case, why had the dive not done damage in itself. Also there was the question of hard objects lurking below the surface that I presume he hadn't thought about checking for. Anyway, I try not to dwell on it too long but I do know that he did it for there were enough witnesses to the feat of courage or madness.

We once had two small wooden bridges that allowed us to cross a small drain or stream from one field into another. They saved a lot of time when checking the cattle in both fields and were actually no more than two railway sleepers thrown down across the width of the river. One had a small oval hole about its midpoint where a knot of wood had once been but it was the more steady and sturdy of the pair. As a young boy, it often gave me a little shiver when I crossed though the water beneath was only a few inches deep. Hoof prints on each side showed that many cows had approached but had not ventured beyond the edge though they had watched two legged creatures cross regularly. Time is never kind to wood and several years ago, one of the footbridges, having rotted sufficiently on both banks sank into the shallow waters beneath to be followed some time later by the other so the only way to reach the field on the other side is now by road, a longer journey by far.

Bridges are a necessary part of our lives, whether to cross roads, railways, rivers or seas. We often hear about building bridges between individuals, families, communities, nations, religious denominations, even different religions. Songwriters have penned such famous titles as 'Bridge over Troubled Water', 'Love can build a bridge', London Bridge,' and '59th Street Bridge Song.' And preachers often refer to the fact that Jesus is the bridge back to God. It's strange then that the word 'bridge' doesn't appear in the Bible even once. That puzzled me until I realised that bridges are really only temporary structures. Yes they may last for many, many years but rust, decay, subsidence and a whole host of natural factors stand in their way of permanency. Jesus is a permanent road to our Father, not a bridge. He is everlasting and there is nothing to fear for He carries us from darkness to light, from death to life and there is no going back. He says, ' I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.' Have you enough faith to trust Him. John says, 'whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.' That sounds pretty permanent to me!