We’ve lived in Greenwood now for nearly 30 years and I truly love this place. But one thing that has always baffled me about our town is the way the names of streets often randomly change for no apparent reason.
One minute you’re driving down Cambridge Avenue, and then it becomes Cambridge Extension and then County Farm Road. Grace Street becomes Cokesbury Road becomes Highway 254. And the “mother” of all schizophrenic streets: Highway 25 becomes Montague becomes Calhoun becomes Main becomes South Main, all within a few miles.
What’s up with that?
Since my marital duties evidently include serving as my husband’s human GPS system, I was recently trying to give Joe directions to get to a house in a neighborhood just off of Grace Street. As I was telling him how to get there from the Highway 72 Bypass, the conversation quickly devolved into a bizarre rendition of Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s on first?” comedy routine.
“Turn left off of the Bypass and onto Grace Street,” I began.
“Wait – I thought that was called Cokesbury Road,” Joe interrupted.
“Yea, it is … if you turn right off the Bypass. But if you turn left, it’s Grace Street.”
“But it’s the same street,” he protested. (His logical brain was going, “tilt…tilt…tilt.”)
“Yea, it is. But this is Greenwood.”
Enough said.
When we first moved here, folks gave me directions that included road names like the “Laurens Highway” or the “McCormick Highway” or the “Abbeville Highway.” It took me quite awhile to figure out that those names exist only in the minds and vocabularies of longtime residents and are totally useless for outsiders who are dependent upon maps and road signs to get them where they want to go.
Of course, now I know what the “Laurens Highway” is ‑‑ it’s Highway 221, otherwise known as Reynolds Avenue, otherwise known as … oh well, never mind.
It seems life would surely be little less confusing around here if we’d give every street one name and stick with it all the way through town.
It occurred to me the other day that a similar kind of confusion has muddied up the truth about what a healthy relationship with God is all about. Jesus taught and modeled a very simple and powerful message about what it means to love God and others. Folks have been complicating it, misrepresenting it, abusing it and avoiding it ever since.
Throughout history, even professing Christians have tried to change the path Jesus laid out. In the absence of a personal relationship with God, they did what folks always do—made up more rules to follow.
They piled all kinds of laws onto Christ’s simple teachings, and people got weary. They twisted His truths, and people lost their way. They forgot His simple love, and “religious” people got meaner than snakes.
Jesus is Jesus is Jesus. Don’t rename Him or redefine Him. Simply know Him, love Him and serve Him – and you’ll be on the right road. And it may be seriously politically incorrect to say it, but it’s the only road that leads to life, in the here and now, and eternally.
Disagree? Your argument isn’t with me, it’s with Him…
“Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’” — John 14:6
“Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” — Acts 4:12