Every Christmas season, a certain piece of music seems to follow me everywhere—from radio jingles to shopping mall speakers. But it wasn’t until a snowy evening in 2012 that Handel’s Messiah truly captured my heart. That December, I decided to take my wife on a date to see the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s performance. I had always liked classical music, but nothing prepared me for what I would experience that evening.

Daily commutes don’t need to be boring. For the past 14 years (except for a hiatus in 2020), my drive to work has been about 30 minutes. I learned early on to listen to something and have since consumed over 2 months of audiobooks (thanks Audible!). But of course I’m driving, so I have to be aware of my surroundings too.

One feature that captivates me nearly every day is a wide, slow moving river that once represented the border of the colonial frontier. The Susquehanna was the first major obstacle to westward expansion, and it was the route I travel on now that generally follows the same highway on which generations of early pioneers trudged. US 30 crosses the river on the Wright’s Ferry bridge, and just downriver this is the older Veterans Memorial Bridge (currently closed for a few years of retrofitting). On my side of the river (York County) sits Wrightsville borough, and on the Lancaster County side is Columbia, which was once a candidate to be capital until Washington D. C. won out.

1 John 5:7 is probably the most controversial inclusion in the King James translation of the Bible. Often referred to as the Johannine Comma (Latin: Comma Johanneum), entire books have been written about this one verse, either for or against its place in the Biblical text. It is arguably the most concise Trinitarian declaration in the New Testament:

For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.