Crossing Bridges Blindfolded

by Gene Shelburne

Life since Tuesday, September 11, two months ago as I am writing this, has been consistently unsettling. It seems we’ve been expecting, and too often finding, new and frightening threats to our sense of well-being.

We’re in a learning process, and having to make adjustments accordingly. In some airports passengers now go barefoot through security checks so their shoes can be X-rayed. And this morning before our next door neighbor drove down to the airport, she emptied several boxes and packages from her car, just to simplify the security search she would undergo as she entered a Sky Harbor parking garage.

Most people don’t conceal sharp blades in their shoe heels or carry bombs in their cars. But the few misguided people who do have changed the lives of those of us who don’t.

One of our local television stations is complaining that their constitutional rights are being denied due to restrictions placed on news helicopter flights. They cite a smoldering wood chip fire near Queen Creek as an example of a news story for which they could not do aerial filming. (We viewers might consider the absence of such coverage as a blessing.)

This is being written the day after California’s governor announced that bridges throughout several western states may be subject to terrorism. Other authorities considered the threat not well enough founded to justify such a warning; nevertheless, this morning’s early TV news pictured San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge and several other major spans, and our imaginations can provide the rest. We can create terrorism in our minds whether or not it actually exists in reality.

We’re in a time of uncertainty. Are major bridges in danger or not? How far west will anthrax spread? And what should we expect next?

We’re in a time of change. We remember life before September 11 and know it will never be quite that way again. We’re crossing bridges from the past and moving toward future conditions we can’t really see.

Many changes. Much uncertainty. Nagging anxiety.

We need the comfort of our unchanging God and his Holy Spirit. We need the sure and certain hope of Christian conviction. We need to hear the familiar cadences of well-loved Scripture. We need our faith to sustain us. By God’s grace he will provide. He holds the eternal future in his hands.