Cities Of Refuge Series

San Francisco has its cable cars. Seattle has its Space Needle, and Longview, Washington, has its squirrel bridge. It’s called The Nutty Narrows Bridge, which spans Olympia Way and is a local landmark.

A local builder, the late Amos Peters, built The Nutty Narrows Bridge in 1963. He wanted to give squirrels a way to cross the busy street without getting flattened by cars. You see, office staff from the Park Plaza building were feeding the squirrels nuts, and they witnessed squirrels being run over many times as they tried to dodge traffic to and from the Park Plaza building. Once the bridge was built, it didn't take long before squirrels started using it. Now, they even escort their young across the bridge, teaching them the ropes. Since then, at least five additional squirrel bridges have been built (City of Longview website, (www.mylongview. com/400/Nutty-Narrows-Bridge; www.PreachingToday.com)

On the busy roads of life, sometimes you long for a safer way. People are looking for a place of refuge in a day and age when they are more and more afraid.

Recently, I came across a very interesting study about the places where children feel safe to play. The study began in 1975, when Roger Hart focused on 86 children between the ages of 3 and 12 in a small town in Vermont. He followed them throughout the day, documenting everywhere the children went by themselves. He then took that information and made physical maps that measured the distance each child was allowed to go by themselves and what the average was for every age group.

Hart discovered that those kids had remarkable freedom. Even 4- or 5-year-olds, traveled unsupervised throughout their neighborhoods; and by the time they were 10, most of the kids had the run of the entire town. The kids' parents did not worry about them either.

Then nearly 40 years later (about 2014), Hart went back to the same town to document the children of the children that he had originally tracked in the '70s. When he asked the new generation of kids to show him where they played alone, what he found floored him. Hart said, “They just didn't have very far to take me, just walking around their property.” In other words, the huge circle of freedom on the maps had grown tiny.

Hart added, “There is no free-range outdoors. Even when the kids are older, parents now say, ‘I need to know where you are at all times.’” This is despite the fact that the town is no more dangerous than it was before. There's literally no more crime today than there was 40 years ago.

So why has the invisible leash between parent and child tightened so much? Hart says it was absolutely clear from his interviews. The reason was fear. He concluded: fear of the world outside our door narrows the circle of our lives (NPR, “World with No Fear,” Invisibilia podcast, 1-15-15; www.Preaching Today.com)

So what do you do with that fear? How do you find refuge in a time when you’re afraid? How do you find that place of safety? How do you find protection when you feel like you’re running for your life sometimes? Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Joshua 20, Joshua 20, where we have an ancient concept that might give us some ideas for dealing with fear today.

Joshua 20:1-3 Then the Lord said to Joshua, “Say to the people of Israel, ‘Appoint the cities of refuge, of which I spoke to you through Moses, that the manslayer who strikes any person without intent or unknowingly may flee there. They shall be for you a refuge from the avenger of blood – i.e., the family protector. (ESV)

His job was to protect his family from those who would harm them in any way. If a debt collector forced a family member into slavery or foreclosed on family property, the family protector bought the family member out of slavery and/or purchased the property back for the family. If someone killed a family member, the family protector would avenge that murder by killing the murderer, insuring that the murderer didn’t kill again.

However, the Mosaic Law provided a place of refuge for the one who kills “without intent,” i.e., accidentally. Perhaps, his ax head flew off the handle and struck someone on the head, killing that person. In the case of involuntary manslaughter, the manslayer could run to a city of refuge and find protection from “the avenger of blood,” or the family protector, who was coming after him.

Joshua 20:4-6 He shall flee to one of these cities and shall stand at the entrance of the gate of the city and explain his case to the elders of that city [no doubt breathlessly]. Then they shall take him into the city and give him a place, and he shall remain with them. And if the avenger of blood pursues him, they shall not give up the manslayer into his hand, because he struck his neighbor unknowingly, and did not hate him in the past. And he shall remain in that city until he has stood before the congregation for judgment, until the death of him who is high priest at the time. Then the manslayer may return to his own town and his own home, to the town from which he fled.’” (ESV)