Marylee Shrider: Man 'gave up the long board for the long cross'
| Thursday, Nov 20 2008 01:21 PM
Last Updated Friday, Mar 27 2009 02:07 PM
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Street evangelist Tom Alexander stands with a large cross underneath the flying American flag that the Bakersfield Fire Department had on display during a National Day of Prayer ceremony at the Liberty Bell.
Tom Alexander carries a cross along Gosford Road.
Why does he do it?
Why does Tom Alexander take to the streets of Bakersfield each morning, lugging a 60-pound cross on his back?
You’ve seen the man. Somewhere along the highways and byways of Bakersfield, you’ve spotted him, towing his cross, waving to passersby and smiling. Always smiling.
Alexander figures he and his cross have covered nearly every main and not-so-main street in Bakersfield at least once, from 7th Standard Road south to Taft Highway and from Weedpatch Highway west to Nord Road.
He walks the streets each day, five days a week, starting around 8 a.m. He walks all morning, takes a two-hour break in the afternoon and is back at it, putting in a total of 10 to 12 miles before his day is done.
He talks with people he meets along the way, sharing prayers with those who want them.
Burly and fit at 61, Alexander started his journey more than two years ago, when he was led to create the 5-by-10-foot cross, mounted on a tire from a child’s old bicycle.
His destination is everywhere, he says, because that’s where people are hurting.
“I have 329,000 reasons for carrying this cross,” Alexander says of Bakersfield’s ever-growing population.
Some of those reasons wave and smile back when they spot Alexander and his cross; others pull their cars to the curb to ask for prayer and counsel. One grief-stricken mother, he says, approached him recently with the news that her young teenage son had just been charged with murder.
“The woman’s face was fraught with pain,” he says. “Tears streamed down her face when she said ‘I needed to see that cross today.’”
That’s all the encouragement Alexander needs to keep walking, stopping often to hoist the cross upright and pray. He prays in front of schools for kids and their teachers, outside the police department for officers’ safety, and at strip clubs for the dancers inside. He stops by government offices to pray for city and county leadership and he prays for the unknown inhabitants of the homes he passes each day.
A former weight lifter and surfer, Alexander “gave up the long board for the long cross” when he started his Bakersfield Street Church more than 30 years ago, ministering to and praying with prostitutes, gang members and the homeless.
The Cross Walk, he says, was a natural extension of the street work he’d done for years, but with a higher profile.
The thing is, a higher profile isn’t always popular these days, especially in places like, say, Palm Springs, where such a display of faith may draw a hostile crowd. One irate reader of this column wrote in this week to compare cross carriers at recent protests to “Nazis showing up at a Jewish rally.”
Alexander hears that and shakes his head in sorrow.
“The cross is God’s plus sign, pointing the way to Jesus Christ,” he says. “There’s nothing negative about it.”
Still, he doesn’t hesitate to take his cross where others fear to tread.
“If I’m only willing to walk where people like me and my cross, that doesn’t say much about my commitment,” he says.
So Alexander walks on, with an eye on a broader horizon. God and finances willing, he plans to take his cross on a walk across California in 2009.
“I don’t go to condemn, but to share God’s truth,” he says. “I just want to talk and I want to defuse some bombs along the way.”
These are Marylee Shrider’s opinions, not necessarily The Californian’s.Call her at 395-7474 or e-mail mshrider@bakersfield.com .
