Hebrews 12 - Freeport, Bahamas

Reading through the last part of Hebrew 12 rubs me the wrong way because I am a rebellious sort. Tell me not to touch something and I will immediately want to touch it. The author here is sounding a warning. Warnings make me want to do the thing that I am warned not to. Better for me the earlier image of striving towards the goal, looking to Jesus, who loves me and whom I in turn love back.
Warnings are necessary. I need to heed them. From lots of bad experiences when I did not I have learned to heed them. Often it is not very easy though. Still my mind will think about it. I think about the consequences.
I take few warnings at face value. I am trying to accept the warnings of Jesus at face value. No one else though. Teachers, preachers, and prospective mentors – I struggle to decide if what they say is true.
The people of Berea (in the book of Acts) are commended for searching the scriptures to see if the message of the Gospel is true. I hope that at least sometimes I am to be commended. (Probably not though because often I search my experience first and not the scriptures.)
Test the spirits Paul says in another place. Yes I do test new ideas against what I have learned before. Better to test against the parts of the Bible that I understand. That has served me well I think.

Today we were in Freeport, Bahamas. Freeport is on a pretty large island, well compared to Key West yesterday and the island Nassau is on tomorrow. DW and I took a cab to what is called “downtown”. They dropped us off at what looked like a flea market. DW bought a lot of stuff. It was better when I did not look. When we decided to go back to the ship we went to a taxi stand and took a 12-seater van. It was more like a bus than a cab. The driver, a large woman took a circuitous route and dropped off a lot of people at various houses. Lately she took us on a back road with lots of speed bumps to a private street that dead ended right by our ship. Yet if you had not known about it you would never have seen it. That is because this lady cannot legally take us back to the ship. She is a private bus. Or something. I don’t quite get it. I see signs that tell of some complicated regulations. There are two taxi boards that regulate taxis access to cruise ships. One regulates for one ship, another for all the rest. How’s that? People here drive on the left side, like in England. The last cab did have the steering wheel on the right side, like in England. The first cab has the steering wheel like in the U.S.A., on the left side.
After dropping DW off I decided to go back through the private street to do a second walk. By now it was 1 PM and getting hot. I was a bit worried but people who spoke to me were friendly. The first lady encouraged me to go into a restaurant right through the fence. But I did not carry any more, only a credit card, and I had just eaten so I declined. I actually did not go too far. The houses were a bit depressing. There signs of informal businesses. Then I came to some industrial businesses. I circled back and returned on the main highway. Two people stopped to ask me if I wanted a ride. I think it was simply island mentality, they were being friendly. I told them I was out for a walk and they drove on. I was only gone a little more than an hour.