PASTOR DAVE’S MUSINGS FROM THE HEARTLAND

March 17, 2024

BUILDING BRIDGES

On Monday, February 19, there was a celebration of the live of Bob Manuwal at the First United Church of Christ in Plymouth, Indiana.  Bob had joined the church triumphant on Wednesday, February 14.  In his tribute to Bob, Jim Smart, the Executive Director of Link to Hope began by saying “real men don’t build walls, they build bridges.”  Throughout his life Bob Manuwal was a builder of bridges.

I first got to know Bob when we worked together at the election polls.  Bob was the inspector and I was a sheriff.  Bob’s goal was that everyone who showed up to vote, could, if at all possible.  The whole team worked together, both Democrats and Republicans, to assist every person who came to cast their ballot.  We were not in the business of building walls to keep citizens from voting.  We were in the business of building bridges to make it possible for people to cast their ballot.

I got reacquainted with Bob when the church I attend, Plymouth First United Methodist Church, had structural problems with the roof.  We first moved to the fellowship hall for worship and then to First United Church of Christ.  Bob was one of the pillars of First UCC.  He went out of his way to make us feel welcome.  Once again, he was about the business of building bridges.

The last several years, about once a week I would run into Bob at Fitness Forum at LifePlex.  He was usually coming or going from a class he took or was riding one of the machines.  When Bob passed, more than a few persons mentioned to me, “We are going to miss him (Bob).”  In his quiet way, Bob had made many friends who miss him.

In a world that seems intent on building walls, Bob’s life story is all that more remarkable.  Today, national and state politics would seem to be especially intent about building walls.  Building bridges of cooperation would appear to be a foreign concept.  It is hard to build bridges when the primary goal is to win at all costs.  A philosophy of my way or the highway is hardly compatible with reaching to build bridges.

When I was growing up in Cortland, Ohio, the Methodist church I attended closed for a month every summer.  We would attend the local Christian church.  They would close for a month and attend the Methodist church.  Both churches had a common office.  The Christian church had some hymns we did not have at the Methodist church.  One that I still remember to this day is “In Christ There Is No East or West.”  John Oxenham writes in the fourth verse, “In Christ now meet both east and west, in Him meet south and north; all Christly souls are one in Him throughout the whole wide earth.”

Oxenham’s words are a reminder that Jesus came to build bridges, not construct walls.  In the fourth chapter of the Gospel of John is the story of Jesus talking with a Samaritan woman (John 4:4-26).  There are at least two walls that would have existed between Jesus and the woman: she was a woman and a Samaritan.  Jesus broke down both these walls and created a bridge.  In the gospels we find other instances of where Jesus breaks down the walls of His day and creates bridges.

Many years ago, Robert Frost wrote in his poem Mending Walls “Something there is that does not like a wall.”  While they can bring a measure of security, at their core there is something wrong with them. Today, there is a longing that the walls of division and strive we experience would diminish and would be replaced with civility and respect.  While we can not change the public discourse, we, like Bob Manuwal, can be builders of bridges and not walls.

(Comments may be sent to davidh15503@embarqmail.com.)