Salinas man bears a cross for peace and love
Love your neighbor as yourself.
It’s a simple enough idea, but one that often troubles humanity.
So with the Lenten season approaching, Jeff Taylor found himself
looking for a way to spread a little love among his fellow man.
He found it on a cross.
Salinas man bears a cross for peace and love
Love your neighbor as yourself.
It’s a simple enough idea, but one that often troubles humanity. So with the Lenten season approaching, Jeff Taylor found himself looking for a way to spread a little love among his fellow man.
He found it on a cross.
Taylor, 48, a Salinas businessman, former youth minister and practicing Catholic, spent the week before Easter carrying a large, wooden cross more than 85 miles, from Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo in Carmel to Mission Santa Cruz, with stops in Salinas, San Juan Bautista and Watsonville.
“The cross is a sign of Christ’s love for us,” Taylor said. “This is a time of peace and love. I wanted to bring a bit of that to others.”
Lent is the period of 40 days before Easter Sunday(excluding the six Sundays, each representing resurrection in most Christian dogma), and while all Christian religions recognize Easter the celebration of Jesus Christ’s resurrection from death, the season of Lent is almost solely Catholic – it is one of the foundations of the Catholic faith; a time for penance, prayer and personal reflection. It is also a time, Taylor said, where Catholics try harder to follow what Jesus called the two greatest commandments of all time, loving God with all your heart, soul and mind and loving your neighbor as yourself.
“There is a lot of division among all the different religions and denominations,” Taylor said. “I’m trying to bridge that gap.”
To do so, Taylor came up with the idea of a cross walk, using the most recognizable of religious symbols to bring hope to those who saw him.
“I’ve talked to a number of youth leaders in the past, and I’ve been involved with different Catholic youth leadership teams, and I had heard people talk about a cross walk and didn’t really know what it meant,” he said. “But for whatever reason, this year the idea just seemed to grow inside my heart.”
Taylor decided Holy Week, the six days before Easter Sunday, would be a good time for his walk because “the week leading up to the crucifixion is the most significant time in the church.” He began planning his walk about a month beforehand, calling the different California missions along his planned route, which included Mission San Juan Bautista, to make sure it would be OK for him to stop and hold prayer vigils. He also asked for and received a special blessing for his walk from Bishop Richard Garcia of the Catholic Diocese of Monterey.
“I knew it would be very difficult week for churches to get involved with this, because Holy Week is so busy,” Taylor said. “I was happy to get the bishop’s blessing.”
Taylor and his friend, Mark Ratliff, along with one other walker, began the journey March 17, leaving Mission Carmel early in the morning, pushing in front of them a nine-foot high wooden cross outfitted with small rubber wheels at its base. A driver followed them along their route, which took them down Hwys. 1 and 156. They walked several miles that first day, ending up at Closter Park in Salinas.
“We had a really nice reception there at the park, it was great,” Taylor said. “There were about 50 people there for praise and worship, and we were all singing and praying. It was inspiring.”
They spent the night in a motel in Salinas, departing for San Juan Bautista the next morning. In San Juan, they visited the mission and spent time with Fr. Ed Fitz-Henry, who was one of three different pastors to bless the cross along the way. On Wednesday, Taylor had about eight walkers with him on the next leg of the trip, which took the group into Watsonville for a prayer service at Teen Challenge, a drug and alcohol recovery/rehabilitation center. About 50 men joined Taylor and his group for an ecumenical service that include songs, prayer and the sharing of personal experiences.
Taylor, who was raised Catholic and for whom the Church still plays a large role in his life, said worshipping with people of other faiths – or no specific faith at all – was a exciting.
“For me, this was not just about the religious aspects. It was about finding a personal relationship with God, not just in the Catholic Church, but everywhere,” he said. “Sometimes other denominations look at the Catholic Church differently, but it is all just so much sill differences. If we all believe in Jesus Christ and our love for him, we should just focus on that. And if we do that, we should be able to overcome our differences.”
The group spent Thursday walking to Mission Santa Cruz, where they spent time in prayer before heading home to spend Easter with their families. Taylor said the reaction from people they passed along the way was “very positive.”
“We had folks honking their car horns as they drove past, and people we met told us they thought what we were doing was great,” he said. “We didn’t hear anything negative at all. The joy of the pastors at the different churches we stopped at, and their excitement at what we were doing, was incredible, also.”
The entire experience was very eye-opening, Taylor said, and one he hopes meant something to the people he and his friends met along their journey.
“I was given some real quality personal reflection time, and that was important to me, but it was a long walk. It’s not something you take on lightly,” he said. “This was put on my heart to do, but I’m not sure what the implications will be. If my small gesture of carrying this cross is significant to just one person, that would be fantastic.”
