The Bungee Cord 7-4-22

Hello,

Happy 4th of July.

I grew up in a suburb outside of Chicago, Hinsdale

Our little gray shingled house was kitty-corner from a park, Robins park. My memory tells me it was a pretty big park, but after a recent visit I discovered my memory had a magnified recollection. Nevertheless, Robins park was just an open field where all sorts of childhood activities took place. There were three little league baseball fields, a playground, two tennis courts, a couple of basketball hoops hung on the tennis court fences, a creek with a bridge that when I was young was a hunting ground for tadpoles (for some reason the creek was filled in), and an open space where we flew kites, played pick-up football, skated on ice puddles, and St. Isaac Jogues Catholic school practiced football. Also in that open space a carnival came to visit every summer around the 4th of July, bringing with it “thrilling” rides (Ferris Wheel, roller coaster, octopus, salt and pepper shaker), “skill games “ which my parents would never let me play on account they were a waste of money (one game you could win a goldfish by throwing ping pong balls), snow cones and cotton candy. We’d spend every night in our elementary school aged years of that week at the carnival, hanging out with friends and having fun.

There was a parade on the Fourth, a parade that I rode in a couple of times having been on the championship little league team. People with convertibles would have us sit atop the back seat, and we would wave at the hundreds of thousands (well, a bit magnified) in the crowd. After the parade was the little league all-star game in which I played several times as a short stop and a pitcher.

The community pool was about 10-12 blocks away from my house and we grade school aged kids would put on our swimming suits, drape a towel around our necks, and walk down to the pool. In the days when skin protection was of little concern, we’d spend all afternoon at the pool and by the time the 4th of July came we all had tans that could have put us on a Solarcain commercial (remember the dog pulling at the swimming suit of a child and revealing a stripe of forgotten white skin?).

I don’t know how they celebrate the 4th in Hinsdale now. The carnival stopped coming when I was in high school. Robins park is still there (but it has been significantly upgraded from my childhood days). I suspect that they still have the parade filled with little league baseball players, now joined by all sorts of other sporting kids. The pool is also still there, but I am sure that plentiful use of sun screen has replaced the dark tans of the swimmers.

Times like the 4th of July bring back memories, memories from a time when the world was no bigger to me than a park, a parade and a pool. There are times when I wish that was all the bigger the world is for me today, but my years have widened my world. I’ve been to Indian Reservations and seen the downward spirally plight of Native Americans. I’ve been to Africa and seen a world where medical care is minimal and electricity has yet to come. I’ve sat in hospital rooms and held the hand of the dying. I have visited prisons that seem to be nothing more than waste receptacles for troubled people. I have raised a family and discovered that it isn’t as easy as I thought to be a parent. I have been married for 40+ years and have been blessed by one who still loves me and has moved 8 times with me to all sorts of environs. I have seen others suffer through the pain of addiction, and I have wrestled for decades with depression. And that is just a sliver of the world that I now know.

In that small world of my childhood, I knew the story of Jesus and I lived in the certainty that Jesus was big enough to take care of me then. And in this larger world in which I now live, I still know the story of Jesus, and over the years my eyes have seen an immensely magnified vision of his love. It may be a bigger world for me now, but so is Jesus love and power, and today I live, even more so, in the certainty that Jesus is big enough to take care of me….and you...and this ever expanding world.

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

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