August 23, 2026 The Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time
I recently attended a Cincinnati Reds game with a good friend of mine from Newport, Kentucky. I met him in Newport and we traveled to Great American Ballpark by walking across the river on the Taylor Southgate Bridge. As we approached the bridge, I noticed and was struck by the blue sign you see in the photo that says There is always hope. It offers information for suicide prevention with a website and hotline number. The one you see here is posted on the Roebling Bridge. This is an appropriate and needed message for those who are in dire despair. I know if I was in a state of severe hopelessness (which I am not), taking my life off this bridge would be easy.
Seeing this sign at this location offers a powerful symbol rich in meaning. How hard it is to make that crossing from the familiar side of life and travel across the mirky waters to an unknown and foreign side of life. What will we find there and can we accept it? How easy it is to decline that journey or to jump off somewhere in mid-stream having “cold feet” of the unknown. Can we be brave to cross the “bridges” to new professions, new relationships, new commitments—or to terminate what needs to be let go of—as that dreaded “bad habit.”
In faith we believe that God can and will call us forth to new places and practices offering us promising futures these new adventures and new habits will bring. Can we cross those symbolic bridges of life in hope? Remember: Abram was called out of his homeland to a new place God would give him with his descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky; how God aided Moses to lead the Hebrew people out of slavery in Egypt; and how Joseph took Mary and Jesus to safety in Egypt to escape Herrod’s massacre of young children.
God’s promise is well said by Gospel singer Claude Jeter’s 1959 song “Mary Don’t You Weep” I’ll be your bridge over deep water if you trust in my name.