Yes, Lord

The church where I attend is dying.

Neighboring farm families who settled in northwest Marion County founded North Liberty Christian Church in 1839. Their names are on the gravestones around our building.

The congregation has has its ups and downs in 170 years. We’ve built two log cabins, a brick church, and the current brick-faced cinder block building on the spot where those farmers first met, growing to at least 250 members. Yet in 1877 our doors closed for 11 years. And about ten years ago we suffered a destructive split, followed by several years of factions fighting for control. This nonsense has cost us dearly; our membership has dwindled to about 70. Our offering doesn’t cover expenses. Too many members are burned out and apathetic.

I’ve been at North Liberty for five years. God brought me here, I think, to get through and then heal from my divorce. But then he had service in mind for me, and has laid any number of things before me to do in this congregation. I’ve done everything I think God has asked me to do and many more things that I saw that needed to be done. I’m pretty involved. But deep in my heart I have been hoping God doesn’t ask me to step up any more.

I watch a small handful of people in our church who are involved in everything. It seems to me that they are desperately trying to keep the place together. They are exhausted, but they keep at it like soldiers on the front line who have been fighting continuously without a break. I don’t want to be one of those people. I have enough going on in my life outside the church, including a demanding job, taking care of a house and yard essentially alone, and trying to raise my children under circumstances that I wish were much better. I want to have time for my hobbies, such as my road trips and this blog, for the joy and restoration they bring. My life is full. Please God, don’t put any more on my plate.

During worship last Sunday, I was in the balcony at the sound board. The fellow who has done that for us the past few years has moved on with his family to another church. I was always his backup, and so now the job defaults to me. Nobody else can do it. I was not particularly happy to gain one more assignment, especially one that keeps my sons and I from worshiping with the rest of the congregation below.

I woke up on the wrong side of the bed that Sunday morning anyway and had just come from the Sunday school class I taught, one I thought I was prepared for but through which I stumbled as though I’d never seen the material before. So I was feeling good and grumbly up there in the balcony, where I didn’t want to be anyway. I was just going through the motions, and was paying only enough attention to punch the right buttons on cue. Then a song, one that we didn’t even sing that day, started playing in my head.

I’m trading my sorrows
I’m trading my shame
I’m laying them down
For the joy of the Lord

I’m trading my sickness
I’m trading my pain
I’m laying them down
For the joy of the Lord

Yes, Lord, yes, Lord, yes, yes, Lord
Yes, Lord, yes, Lord, yes, yes, Lord
Yes, Lord, yes, Lord, yes, yes, Lord, Amen.

I’m pressed but not crushed
Persecuted not abandoned
Struck down but not destroyed
I am blessed beyond the curse
For his promise will endure
That his joy is going
To be my strength

Though my sorrows may last for the night
His joy comes with the morning

The song was distracting and I wished it would go away. And then my mind got stuck on the chorus, all the yes, Lords. By the 30th or 40th chorus I was seriously considering humming “It’s a Small World” to myself to shake this song – and suddenly I became aware that answering God’s call was the theme of that day’s worship in both song and sermon, which I thought I had not been paying attention to. And I felt that God was making sure I heard it.

Okay, Father, so you reached me. You told me through the circumstances of my day and through the actions of my mind that you want me simply to say yes to all you ask. You suggested through it that what you ask will not be more than I can bear. I can do it, Father; I will do it. Whether I’m to see this congregation die or see its spirit rekindled, I know you want me there doing the work you’ve set aside for me. I know you know my situation, and I’m going to trust you to meet my needs.

There’s quite a story behind how I came to this church. Read all about it. See how this church moved from rural to urban here.

The General Dean Bridge

You don’t see many suspension bridges here in flyover country.

This one was built in 1859 in Carlyle, Illinois, on a mail and stage road between Vincennes, Indiana, and St. Louis, Missouri. US 50 follows much of that 1806 road’s path today. I read conflicting reports of whether US 50 ever crossed this bridge, but motor vehicles did travel along it until 1932, when it was closed and a new bridge built nearby. The bridge was built with horses and buggies in mind, and so a few trucks broke through the deck! The bridge sat abandoned for more than 30 years and deteriorated rapidly. This 1936 photo is from Historic American Engineering Record; see more historic photos at the Library of Congress’s Web site.

Fortunately, the bridge was restored in the 1950s and was renamed for Major General William Dean, a Carlyle native who served during the Korean War.

It has been a pedestrian bridge since, and was a popular spot on Memorial Day when a friend and I went out to see it.

The deck is narrower today than it was when it carried regular traffic. I don’t think my little car would fit!

This suspension bridge too puny for you? Check out the one in Wheeling, West Virginia. It’s a real man’s suspension bridge.

It’s named after Major General William Dean, a Carlyle native who served during the Korean War.

Three abandoned bridges in a row

As you drive US 50 in Illinois, in several places you parallel an older alignment of the road. The state has intended at various times to build a four-lane expressway out of US 50, to the extent that new lanes have been laid down with the presumable intent of rebuilding the old lanes to carry traffic in the opposite direction. Instead, in every case the old lanes have reverted to local use.

One such segment lies just east of Clay City, which is about a third of the way across Illinois from east to west. The old road crosses three streams within two miles just before it reaches Clay City. In the mid-1990s local authorities closed the old bridges over these streams, effectively abandoning that segment of the old highway. This snippet from Google Maps shows this segment in blue and marks the three bridges.

I never get tired of being amazed by what happens to a road when it’s not maintained for 15 years. Here’s the cement roadway leading eastbound from the eastmost bridge.

The three bridges, rusting away all, were built of steel in 1923. The first two also have unusual brick side rail sections on either end.

The first bridge, over the Big Muddy River, has developed a hole in its deck. It’s a testament to the bridge’s truss structure that an asphalt layer that thin could support the weight of traffic for 71 years.

I walked out onto the current US 50 bridge to take this photo.

The second bridge’s eastern approach is considerably overgrown.

My friend Michael was on hand taking photos as well and got me in his picture. The bridge felt very solid while I walked on it, but this photo makes it look frail, as if I might fall off at any moment.

This bridge, which crosses Little Muddy Creek, is of the same design as the first.

The third bridge is a little different from the first two, and not just because it lacks brick side rails. While the first two bridges are no-nonsense Pratt through trusses, this one’s gently curving top arch identifies it as a Parker through truss.

This bridge crosses the Little Wabash River.

There’s more to come from my US 50 trip, including an 1859 suspension bridge and a bridge that was built but never used. If you’re impatient, check out my trip report on my roads pages.

Also check out South Bend, Indiana’s concrete arch bridges and the bridges along Indiana State Road 42.

Where Lincoln first entered Illinois

I just love to find an old brick road. This one used to be US 50 as it entered Illinois after crossing the Wabash River from Vincennes, Indiana.

Notice how the fellow who owns that house parks his cars on the old highway? A roadgeek’s dream!

You may have noticed that there’s no bridge in that photo. It’s been gone for probably 75 years. I found this postcard image of the bridge that led to this brick road. One part of the bridge was a steel arch truss, and another part was a wooden covered bridge!

Since 1933, a series of grand arches has linked Vincennes to Illinois. Here’s the bridge from the Vincennes side. But even this is no longer US 50; the road bypasses town to the north and crosses the Wabash over a bridge named after Red Skelton.

There are lots of photos of this bridge on the Internet, but I’ve yet to see any taken from the Illinois side. I’ve corrected that problem here.

I didn’t think much about how the 1933 bridge rose so high above the river until someone commented on one of these photos on Flickr that the area looked pretty good for having been under water so many times. The most recent flood was in June of 2008. Several square miles were under water in Illinois, including the old brick road and the house of that fellow who parked his cars on the bricks. (Suddenly, parking my car there didn’t seem so attractive anymore.) But the 1933 bridge was never under water.

This monument, which stands near the end of the bridge on the Illinois side several feet above the old brick road, wasn’t under water either. When young Abraham Lincoln crossed into Illinois, he and his family did it near this spot, and this monument commemorates it. It felt very cool to walk ground Lincoln walked.

Follow another Illinois road trip I took and see why it gave me such a reality check.

It’s all in the details

When I was a kid, it was fun to guess the make, model, and year of the cars I saw on the roads. In those days, automobile manufacturers freshened their basic designs every year between major redesigns. Those freshenings often involved some pretty obvious sheetmetal changes – new taillights, revised fenders, that sort of thing. Today, manufacturers make few changes between major restylings, which makes it very hard to accurately date a car. It’s not fun anymore!

Today we’re going to play “Guess the Classic Car” by looking at just those details from cars I photographed at the Mecum auction. Click each photo for the answer.

Let’s start with the easiest first. I include it mostly because I dig how this car’s black paint reflected me as I photographed its badge. The manufacturer made a car with this name for only two years. Which car and what years?

These headlights came from a mid-sized grocery getter into which a large V8 could be stuffed. Which car and what year?

This tail light seems to float in its housing. Make, model, and year?

The photo gives you this car’s name; can you tell me what year it was made? It’s tricker than it looks. Extra credit for naming the cars reflected in the El Cam’s paint.

Dodge used this badge on one of its cars for two model years. Can you name it? Extra credit: What is the triangular shape at this badge’s center called?

This tail light is from a big station wagon. Which one, and which year?

These start getting a lot harder now. What car wore this hood scoop? It would help you to know that the car has a twin-loop front bumper.

This wheel well comes from a muscle car about which songs were written. It’s pretty hard to guess a car’s make, model, and year from just a wheel well, but that’s what I’m asking of you. Extra credit for naming the make and year of the car reflected in the dog dish.

I think this is the hardest one. This hood ornament is from this make’s first serious muscle car and appeared, I’m pretty sure, only on the first-year examples, and only when a particular engine was under the hood.

I stumbled upon another muscle-car show one day and found a nice 1966 Plymouth VIP there.