From our dear brother Joel Barton for you.
The ongoing COVID-19 challenge has caused all of us to change our lives and habits in the short term, if not unforeseeably in the long term. On many Saturdays I try to explore different area parks to walk socially distant from many people, while appreciating nature and taking pictures. Something that has caught my interest in many areas I have visited is that existing on all sides of Cleveland are remnants of the old electric interurban railway– the trolley system. From what I have read some lines began construction as early as 1887. Different lines with different names ran to the west to Toledo, and then to Detroit. To the east they ran to Erie, Pennsylvania and points beyond. To the south they ran to Columbus. To the southeast they ran to Akron and Canton. This system was vital for transporting people and goods at the turn of the twentieth century and in the following decades. As the automobile became more common and roads and highways developed, the need for the interurban declined. Different lines changed hands, were absorbed by others, and eventually went bankrupt. The last of the interurban lines in the area closed due to labor problems in 1938, and never reopened. Their day had passed.
In Bay Village and Berea there still stand concrete supports that once held heavy wooden track beds and metal track. Concrete made over 100 years ago is apparently a lot more durable than modern concrete. An old restored (on the outside, anyway) passenger car rests in the parking lot of a shopping center in Avon Lake on Lake Road. It marks the location of an old stop on the westbound line. In many places extra tall electric poles that once held the lines needed by the system have been adopted by modern utility companies. In some accessible locations you can see built up banks of ground that once held the metal track that has long since been removed. Even though I didn’t live during the time the system was in operation, I can’t help but feel a sense of sadness that something that was once so vital and important is gone without ever being encountered by many people living now.
Last Saturday I visited a park called The Rookery in Geauga County. The park has a few hiking trails That go through woods and along ponds and a river. The trail I chose to walk is a corridor that runs through the woods and along ponds where you can stop to appreciate nature. The corridor has two signs near the beginning explaining that it once held the track of the interurban line with a split that ran from Cleveland to Middlefield one way, and Chardon the other. There are also pictures of the some of the cars and people who worked on the line. As I walked down the trail looking at nature around me I was struck by the history of what was once there. It also dawned on me what a great purpose the former track bed now has. Instead of allowing people to pass through the area in somewhat of a hurry as it once did, the path now allows people to slow down and appreciate God’s creation in nature.
I think we tend to get caught up in what we are doing daily, and in the circumstances of our past. We can’t help but look at a situation we are in and wonder how it might have been different if only…
The Apostle Paul has personal advice for each of us from his own life. He sought to make his life like Christ’s, following Him with his behavior in faith. In Philippians 3 Paul reminds us that his goal was “that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead” (Philippians 3:11).
In verses 12-16 Paul presents his goal in a way that gives us a crystal clear picture of our goal:
“Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained.”
Like the corridor of the old interurban railway through The Rookery, we have had a purpose in life and manner of living that has served us while we have been here. But as good as that purpose might have been it pales in comparison to the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Our future as believers holds much more than our past or present ever could. I can’t help but think that if the old Geauga County interurban line had a consciousness it would have been pleased with what it has become.
Take heart and be encouraged!
Calvary Community Church Blog 