Top 10 Reasons to Love Northeast Ohio (Revisited)

Several years ago, I blogged/bragged about the numerous things to love about Northeast Ohio. Cleveland has been in the news a lot the past few months between the Cavs winning the NBA championship and the RNC Convention. People have been raving about our city and our area. My wife who is a transplant from the western suburbs of Chicago loves it here and says "we want people to love our area but not so much that they move here" which means we like kind of being on the fringes. I grew up here, moved away and have been back since 1985.

We live in a community. The gospels are replete with the environment and community that Jesus and the disciples lived. Imagine the gospels without the Sea of Galilee, Capernaum, Samaria, and of course Jerusalem. Other than the lousy winters there is no other place I would rather be. So it is with great pride that I republish my blog of two years ago of the Top 10 things to love about Northeast Ohio.

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#10 - Little Bit of Country, Little Bit of City

I really like that I can ride my bike not too far from me (even in Cuyahoga County) and I can be in the country.  I have lived in the Chicago and New York areas and it is a lot harder to find country. When we lived in Aurora, I would bike about 10 miles from our house and I was in Amish country. We had Amish builders on our house. Every Labor Day, we make a trek to the Great Geauga County Fair where we look at pig butts (as Debsue says), eat onion rings and drink 4H milkshakes. We are in the country, yet we are also in a city with all of the city amenities. Best of both worlds. 

#9 - A Manageable City

This one is quite similar to #10, but slightly different. Our city is very manageable. What I mean by that is it is fairly easy to get around and navigate. From our house in Brecksville downtown is 17 minutes with no traffic. Traffic here is nothing compared to other cities. Have you driven in LA, Chicago, New York, Atlanta, Washington, D.C.  I missed a flight in Baltimore driving from Dulles, VA 30 miles away as I was in traffic 3 hours. Even smaller cities can be challenging. Our rush hour commuting delay is usually around 10 minutes. I commuted downtown for 7 years and it is really nothing. Yes, we would love to have a better RTA system, but it isn't terrible. From one end of the city to the other is a few minutes. There is a reason why Cleveland's downtown residence is now at 98% occupancy. 

#8 - Museums

I am not a museum junkie and that is why this one is probably number 8 on my list. We have a plethora (using a big word because of the topic) of museums. And they are top rate. The Cleveland Museum of Art is massive and just underwent a major renovation.  The Museum of Natural History is going through a similar renovation. By the lakefront is of course the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame and the Science Center. In Akron, you have the Inventors Hall of Fame. In Canton, the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Specialty museums, normal museums, quirky museums - we have them all. 

#7 - Blossom Music Center and the Cleveland Orchestra

A city of less than 500,000 has one of the world's renowned orchestras seems almost too good to true. Every summer, Debsue and I principally have a staycation where we stay in the area. We love being here in  the summer and one of the reasons is to go to Blossom Music Center and hear the Cleveland Orchestra.  We get season passes each summer and sit on the lawn - it is the perfect place to hear the orchestra and the perfect venue to be with friends, drink wine or beer, and eat dinner.

 

#6 - World Renowned Health System

It is hard not to think of Cleveland without thinking of our world class medical care. Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals are best in class. Now we have added the Global Center for Medical Innovation (formerly known as the Medical Mart), the only facility in the world that demonstrates the future of health and health care. One time a friend who is in medical care in Cleveland once asked me if there was any better place in the world you could get sick and not worry about the quality of health care. He was right. 

#5 -  Neighborhood Diversity and Charm

I learned this one early on when I started living here. Do you live on the east side or the west side? Side note - we now live in Brecksville and there is a running debate on whether this is east side or west side. If you use Route 77 as your divisor, we live on the east side. If you use the national park, we live on the west side. Maybe we can claim both! Cleveland is a city known for its neighborhoods. Shaker Square, Gordon Square, Tremont, Ohio City are examples of some of our favorite "neighborhoods". In Ohio City, there is the West Side Market, the oldest operating indoor/outdoor market. We love to visit there, buy great produce, Ohio City pasta and from time to time fritters and Steve's gyros. One of the things we love the most is the people we see at the West Side Market. In Tremont, there is Grumpy's, in Gordon Square, the Happy Dog.  There seems to be a decided food theme to this one.

 
#4 - The Lakefront
If you had asked me the top 10 off the top of my head, I probably would not have listed the lakefront. I don't have a boat and I live 15 miles from the lake. There is also no doubt that the lakefront is underutilized. But I also know that is changing. Cleveland sits on Lake Erie and that makes it a hub of transportation and commercial activity. It is also a hub of recreation. Last Friday, Deb and I volunteered for the Cleveland Metro Parks at Burning River Fest. The festival was at Wendy Park. A year ago, I did not even know where Wendy Park was. We were promoting the new Water Taxi system coming over the next few years. I was privileged to work on this project as part of Leadership Cleveland II. The lakefront is a great asset and the best is yet to come.


 # 3 - The Park System
In my rankings, I could have easily justified this as number one or two. One of the major reasons we moved to Brecksville is because it is at the fulcrum of three different park systems - Cuyahoga National Park, Cleveland Metro Parks, and Summit Metro Parks. All are first rate and they almost seem to blend together. In fact, I used to think they were all kind of one big park system. Again my ignorance. The CNP is one of the top 10 most frequented national parks in the country. It is up there with the Yosemite's of the world. I have a much greater appreciation of our park systems as both a regular user and because of my friendship with a few leaders in CNP and Cleveland Metroparks. I think it is crown jewel. I love getting on my bike and just riding on the Towpath or Bike n Hike.

 
 #2 - SPORTS...
Hard to believe that I would put sports teams number two given that we haven't won anything since 1964. I was five years old at the time so I have no recollection of the event even though we lived in Euclid at the time. That makes it even more amazing that NE Ohio is still so sports crazy. I submit as proof that the Plain Dealer, our daily paper is almost always half devoted to our crazy sports teams. Count articles on the front page as indirectly related to sports. We have a definite bias as an area towards football - we will support that even if the team stinks which it has since 1999. Now we have added Johnny football - not sure what that will mean. But we also had 455 straight sellouts in baseball and one of the top attendance figures in the NBA for basketball when Lebron was here. Speaking of which - Lebron is back! If you have not seen Frank Calliendo's rendition of Lebron's speech in Morgan Freeman's voice, it is definitely worth a look.

 
#1 - The People
A community is only as good as its people. I love the people in this community. By and large, they are down to earth, genuine, mostly humble people. To that point, I get to interact with some pretty successful people and the vast majority are wonderful people. I could not say that about growing up in the East Coast or what I have observed other places. NE Ohioans care about people. We care about our community. The biggest flaw we have is that we tend to have an inferiority complex but I think that is changing. NE Ohio is on a roll baby and it is about time the world sees it for what it is.

Uniter or Divider?

These few weeks have been very tumultuous for our country. As I write this from Cleveland, OH, the Republican National Convention will be kicking off tomorrow. Protests have already started. I am finding myself praying fervently for our city and our country in these times. It seems like everyone has an opinion on what divides us. Everyone has an opinion on what will correct these racial, generational, and political differences we seem to have.

As I have been contemplating this, I find myself asking the basic question - am I a uniter or a divider? That is, I am part of the solution or do I just want to find a way to whine about the problem. As protesters were gathering for next week, about 1,000 of us gathered yesterday at the Wolstein Center to lift our country, our city up in prayer. I was struck by the crowd which crossed racial, generational, ethnic, and denominational lines. The event (www.theresponseusa.org) was completely apolitical. In fact, at the start of it, it even made a point of saying it would not even mention any names or any parties.

The unifying factor for this group was a common faith in Jesus Christ. I found myself in a prayer huddle surrounded with people whom I just met but had an immediate common bond with. Paul says that the "he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility" (Eph. 2:14). It is the common bond of Christ that allowed me to walk into that building and immediately feel like I was part of a family gathering. And the family had a united mission - to pray our city and our country through these challenging times.

Cavs Celebration - Shared Victory and a Great Multitude

Lebron James said the past week has been surreal. I would agree. I am a lifelong Clevelander - I have lived other places in my life but of the 56 years I have lived on this earth (thus far), 45 have been in this great city. I also am a huge Cleveland sports fan. I was five years old the last time Cleveland won anything and I have no memory of that event. Like many others, I have lived through Red-Right 88, The Drive, The Fumble, The Shot, The Blown Save, and yes, The Decision. I began to question whether a championship was going to happen in my lifetime. Ohio State, while sweet covers the whole state and not just our little city.

That is why the victory Sunday night (only a week ago) and the parade on Tuesday were so extra special. Sunday night Deb and I went to Ohio City and watched the game at Market Garden Brewery. We knew win or lose we needed to experience this event with others of similar sports faith. After the improbable victory we went downtown and I must have high-fived a thousand people. It did not matter whether you were old or young, black or white, rich or poor, thin or fat, you celebrated that night. Then there was the parade. I rode my bike downtown because I wanted to; a) avoid the nightmare traffic, and b) get a better firsthand sense of the crowd. I have never seen that many people gathered to celebrate. Seeing over a million people celebrating in my little city brought tears to my eyes multiple times. The panoramic shot from my iPhone paints a picture.

My heart and head went to a place that maybe others haven't thought about. This is a small taste of the celebration in heaven. John says in Rev. 7:9 that a "great multitude from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages" will be celebrating God and the Lamb who is Jesus Christ. I even thought about King James and how this city embraced the returning superstar as a small taste of worship of the infallible, sacrificial King Jesus. Many people seem to have this impression of heaven as a boring place. Nothing can be further from the truth - the reality is it is a giant party.

It is also a giant party with purpose. There are lots of passages that describe heaven as a place of joy and purpose. As I was standing in the parade, I had lots of joy but no real purpose other than to yell a lot. God in heaven will not only provide incredible joy, but there will be function as well. Sunday night I heard a lot of people saying "We did it". Well last I checked, none of us even picked up a basketball. We identified with the Cavaliers because they represented Cleveland. We also represent Christ who paid the ultimate sacrifice on the cross for our sins. In fact the word Christian means "little Christs". The sacrifice ushered in responsibility - responsibility in this world and the one to come. Only God could provide true joy and ultimate purpose.

The Wonders of Life

In my blog post last week, I reflected on the cicadas and the wonders of observing this phenomena. I think many of us take for granted those things that happen routinely but are anything but routine. Several weeks ago, we were flying to Florida and the man in the seat behind me of nearly 50 years old commented that he had never flown before.

He was so excited that he asked the people on either side of him to take pictures out the window. He was also hyper-ventilating as we took off and gasping as we landed. About 30 minutes in the flight, he hit the call button and asked the flight attendant if she could "take his order". He did not understand the routine of airplane service. About a few hours in, I got up to stretch (I do this routinely in flight because I have had a blood clot and my hamstrings also are very tight). He asked me if it was ok to stand in the aisle like that.

I reflected on what this man was experiencing. Since when does flying 600 mph in a metal tube with a hundred of our closest friends become normal? My brother-in-law is a pilot and even he is routinely awed by what the world looks like from 10,000 to 30,000 feet in the air.

We were at a wedding last night and a friend of our daughter brought her seven week old baby to the wedding. Looking at a new born baby should fill us with wonder. In the movie Rocky (Rocky II that is), Rocky says to Adrian when their baby is born "I can't believe you did this". Rocky has wonder but it is misplaced. God is the author of this complicated human organism and uses people as the means.

Do we approach life with a sense of wonder?  Or with a sense of routine? There are so many daily routine, ho-hum things that we see that reflect the wonder of who God is. Even giving ourselves credit for the wonders of technology should be directed not from the inventor but to the ultimate creator God who fashions the complex into the seemingly ordinary.

Cicada Lessons

We are at the tail end (no pun intended) of the cicada invasion. These little buggers depending on where you live in NE Ohio are everywhere. There is a neighborhood by where I work where they are particularly prominent. I learned a whole lot about cicadas reading up on them on websides like cicadamania.com.

 When we look at things in nature like cicadas, we can have one of several reactions. We can say to ourselves, "so what" and just move on with our lives. At the opposite end of the spectrum, we can marvel at these things and think they are the end in and of themselves. Or we can admire and draw from the great Creator God who fashions an unbelievable and complex world. In many cases, cicadas and much of nature serves to remind us of what life is like, especially in perspective to eternity. For example:

1. Cicadas remind us of the cycle of life. Cicadas have a very predictable life cycle much like the seasons that should remind us of life and death as matters of course in this life post the fall.
2. Cicadas remind us of the brevity of life. Cicadas have a short life span and their life span as adults outside the ground is a mere 2-3 weeks.
3. Cicadas remind us of resurrection. They emerge from the ground just as God brings forth life out of the ground as part of the creation of man and the subsequent resurrection of all men whether to destruction or new life (heaven or hell).
4. Cicadas remind us of new birth. Cicadas emerge from the ground as nymphs and shed their exoskeleton skin for a new purpose. While unfortunately their life as adults is brief, ours in a resurrected body are created for eternity.
5. Cicadas remind us of courtship (ok maybe this one is a stretch) - Cicadas actually sing to attract their mates. Males sing, females respond, mating begins, and the cycle of life begins again. Somehow the attractiveness of their mates is a natural course of life. I found on the cicadamania site a place where you can listen to all of their singing and noises.

I marvel at what God is doing in creation. I am sorry, but even when I was not a follower of Jesus, I never doubted in an orderly, complex creator. And when you look a little closer, you can experience and see much of what life is about.

Entertaining is not Illuminating

We are starting to head into the heavy travel season. Deb and I were on a United flight recently and we were at the point where the plane was pushing back from the runway. You know the part where the pre-flight instructions are given to the passengers. Probably most of us tune out this part because we have heard it so many times before; "Pull the belt low and tight across your lap", "be sure to put the oxygen mask on your child first", "in the unlikely event of a water landing", etc.

United took a different tactic. They created entertainment. The video below shows the same information but presented in the form of travel or life events.

I did find myself paying more attention to the video because it was mildly entertaining. I am not sure how much of my recall of what was being actually said was improved or not. Imagine however it we knew the plane was going to have a crash landing or there would be extreme turbulence. We would probably be all ears and hanging on every word coming from those pre-flight instructions.

Much of our culture seems to revolve around boiling serious matters to entertainment and slick productions. It seems harder and harder to talk to things that are deadly serious in a straightforward manner. Many church services seem inclined to produce slick multi-media productions that the simple proclamation of the gospel. Thankfully while our church, Christ Community Chapel is really good at producing these types of productions, it ultimately points forward to the simple message of the gospel spoken during the service by a lone man with a microphone.

Like the pre-flight instructions, we should hang on these words and not dilute them. I am always disappointed by someone who says "I did not get anything out of that service" as if the point of the service is to entertain you. The very words themselves have power in and of themselves. Paul says in Romans 1:16 that the gospel is "power of God unto salvation". It is a life or death message that requires us taking it far more seriously than we do.

Direct Access

I was in Washington, D.C. this past week at Health Datapalooza the growing healthcare data show. One of the keynote speakers was Vice President Joe Biden. As I entered into the hotel lobby the morning of the conference, I saw a large line going up the stairs. I quickly deduced that normal conference protocol was out the window. Everyone was required to go through a scanner and hand searches of bags, backpacks etc. When Biden spoke (he was very good), it was pretty obvious that anything out of the ordinary would prompt the numerous plainclothes secret service men to move closer. I was about 50 feet away, but I probably might as well have been two miles away. And this was the Vice President. I can only imagine how far away from President Obama I might be.

Yet every day I have direct access to not just a president, or a king, but the creator God. I look up at heaven and I feel so small yet in God's eyes I am infinitely valuable. In essence, God has given me His cell phone and said "call me anytime day or night" and often I do. God never says He is busy running the universe or handling bigger problems that day. But I think it even goes beyond that - God isn't bothered by me or my trifling human issues but loves for me to call Him up and talk to Him.

Prior to Jesus death and resurrection, I would have needed more than security clearance to get to a holy and righteous God. But something strange happened when Jesus died on the cross. The curtain across the Holy of Holies split in two. This curtain was used to prevent the commoner from approaching God. It was may more than a security scanner. The historian Josephus says that it took multiple horses to pull it apart. Yet, at the point Jesus finished bearing our shame, this curtain was completely torn apart. What does that mean? The scanners were done away with. I have that unfettered access to a holy and righteous God.

I love the Psalms - they reveal this intimacy in such graphic ways. Just these verses in the first 10 chapters.

3:4 - I was crying to the Lord with my voice and He answered me from His holy mountain.
4:8 - In peace I will both lie down and sleep, for You alone, O Lord make me to dwell in safety
5:3 - In the morning, O Lord you will hear my voice. In the morning I will order my prayer to You and eagerly watch.
6:9 - The Lord has heard my supplication, the Lord receives my prayer.
8:3-4 - When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars which You have ordained, what is man that you take thought of him, and the son of man that you care for him?