Bridges

In my office, I have the famous Newhouse picture of The Golden Gate Bridge over San Francisco Bay. Construction started in 1933 and finished in 1937 during the worst years of The Great Depression. 80,000 miles of cable went into the construction of this great bridge, enough cable to go around the world six times. The cost, even then, was $35 million.

One of the exciting experiences in China was crossing the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge China with an artery for cars upper and trains lower, spanning over the Yangtze River 160 meters. It was completed in 1968 and is the first double-decker, double-track highway and railway bridge designed and constructed by the Chinese without outside engineering assistance.

These bridges like bridges all over the world are the most important commercial structures for mankind. Most of the world’s great cities are built on river waterways or harbors. Until 1900, there were very few bridges of any length. Engineering and expense were too prohibitive. As in Indonesia, a country of islands (5,000), the Harbor at Hong Kong or even some US cities, ferries are used to move people and industry from one side to the other.

Great bridges like other great miracles of industry first become a vision on paper but as with the runner in race competition it takes someone with the “heart” to do it. Two men can look through prison bars, one sees the sky and the stars beyond, the other sees muddy ground. It is first in the mind the construction of a bridge or the desire to heal the sick. God gives remarkable ability and courage, sometimes unexpectedly, to one with the desire or the vision. We can do great things when we get that “inner strength” for accomplishment.

My Mother never tired of telling the story of a neighbor whose house was on fire. She had been a semi-invalid for years but she came running out of her house carrying her sewing machine. From somewhere, somehow, science cannot explain these things. She got the inner strength to overcome her crippled body and not only save herself but her most precious possession, her sewing machine, at the right time. At the right time, an engineer was given the inner strength and knowledge to plan the construction of the bridge in San Francisco, the bridge in Nanjing, the Brooklyn Bridge in New York and many of the other great bridges or other marvels of human engineering around the world.

There were two thieves on either side of our Blessed Lord on Calvary suffering the same crucifixion as Jesus. Both heard him say, “Father forgive them,” but only one asked to be forgiven, and he was told he would be the second person in Heaven, “Paradise.”  The great man-made and constructed bridges cannot be lessened in their importance but the greatest bridge ever built was the simple cross, first carried by a slave from Africa, Simon of Cyrene, which connects mortals from earth to immortals in Paradise.

Rabbi Harold Cushing, in his book Why Bad Things Happen To Good People states that it is only through pain, suffering, disability that many of us fully understand the plan of redemption.

Construction on the 6,000 foot Brooklyn Bridge began in 1870. The designers directing the construction of the bridge were Emily Roebling, John Roebling and Washington Roebling. The Brooklyn Bridge might not have been built had it not been for Emily Warren Roebling. Most history books cite her father-in-law John Roebling and her husband Washington Roebling as the bridge’s builders. Early into construction in 1872, however, collapsing bridge timbers crushed John Roebling’s legs, leaving him incapacitated. Soon after, an illness paralyzed Washington Roebling.

With both men out of commission, Emily Warren Roebling took over. Under her husband’s guidance, Emily had studied higher mathematics, the calculations of catenary curves, the strengths of materials, bridge specifications, and the intricacies of cable construction. She spent the next 11 years supervising the bridge’s construction. Living close by, they directed the construction of the bridge from the window of their house. The Brooklyn Bridge was completed thirteen years later and was opened for use on May 24, 1883.

The miracle of “mind over matter” is the same blessing the Ancients knew, our ancestors witnessed and those of us who are disabled and know people who are disabled, it is the human spirit, that inner strength, the “heart” of accomplishment, that causes the runner to win the race, the surviving spirit in every tragedy. How many times, in earthquakes, after thousands of dead and wounded have been removed, and someone says it is now a matter of locating the dead. When the dogs are brought in to sniff out the dead, we find survivors, people who by some inner strength have held on to life.

We know the value of life and the certainty of the bridge that goes both ways when we encounter these miracles. (I know the miracle, I am totally blind 100% disabled service connected veteran). With time, everyone will encounter the need for inner strength.  Hold onto your friends and above all hold on to your greatest friend the One who will give you the inner strength and the One who will never leave you alone.