Your Father's Oldsmobile
In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis argues that we only have our bodies for the short term but our souls are ours eternally. He argues that if you know your body is not your own but on loan from God, you would treat it differently, as you would an apartment from a home. His very 19th century assumption is that if you were renting a place you would take better care of it then if you owned it out of respect for the owner. In the 21st century the opposite assumption would have to be made. People regularly trash apartments, hotel rooms, rental cars and furniture. Public parks and public waste dumps can often be confused with one another. Picture a movie theatre after a show. Enough said.
I think in a 21st century analysis we might have to say that the body is more like your car. You get it and in it you learn to keep it up. Over your time there, you fix things up and you screw things up, but gradually you learn: change the oil when the light comes on, don’t try to clean the windshield in the dark with a broken Sprite bottle and if it says “use unleaded” it means “use unleaded.” The same is true of your body. Maybe you learn that you like chocolate, and then you learn to eat only enough to keep from getting sick. You learn that you can play tennis but gardening on your knees is a bad thing. Ultimately, you learn what your body loves and what is good for it. If you keep your car tuned-up and learn the lessons as you go, you sell it for a profit and move on to another, better, car. If you learn to care for your body, then you get a healthier, more beautiful one.
Where does God come in? Well, see, you didn’t buy the car, your father did. And he’s letting you “own” it as long as you take good care of it. He doesn’t want you to run it into the ground. He wants to look out at your car parked at the curb and say, “Look how well my child takes care of the things I give him.” It reflects well on your father if you don’t drive a muffler-less beater through the neighborhood. He won’t stop loving you if you do, but he may ask you to park it around the corner on the next block.
In the same way, you got your body from God; he made it in his image, unique, perfect and cut to suit. Maybe you got a Porsche, maybe a Chevy. I personally am a minivan girl. In any case, He meant for you to have it and He wants you to love it. If you do a good job, He can be proud of you. Being in good health makes a good impression on people and represents for God. Being healthy inside and out is a sign of your gratitude to God for the awesome ride He gave you in this lifetime. You put good gas in your car, you don’t run it down, you keep the paint job up with a regular exercise routine and God is pleased to have you park it in his House every weekend. On the other hand, if you screw around and fill it with poison, never open it up on the highway or give it a bad paint job, then how are you showing your appreciation? By screwing it up? Okay, it has no effect on God, but you’ve lessened the value of your car and lowered your life expectancy. In any case, treat it right or the high performance vehicle you got out of the show room may have considerably less potential than was originally designed into it. And in this analogy, there may be a dump, where cars go if they have led dissolute lives. But that may be a stretch.
You get the point. Love your body and you show love for God. Not original, but still relevant. But loving your body is not all there is to living in a body-temple. There is also the spiritual part. Here our car analogy has to move to another level. You were given the car and trained and now you have a license to use the vehicle. The question you have to ask yourself is: what kind of a driver are you going to be?
Use Your Turn Signal. The first and most important question is, of course, do you indicate your turns by using your turn signals? If there is a venal sin in our car analogy, this has got to be it. When you are intending to do something, do you indicate to those people being effected that there is a change in the air? Do you look around and make sure that everyone is in a safe place and won’t be injured by your change? Or are you going to surprise people and cause them to veer, might you cause hurt or injury to someone around you out of selfishness or laziness?
Come to a Full Stop. And don’t roll through stops. All four wheels should stop moving. Observe the others around you. Ask yourself where they are going and if your paths might cross, ask yourself who needs to go first. Could you wait, for safety’s sake, if they look like they are in a hurry? You’re stopped now, take a minute to get your breath and look around you. Are you headed in the right way? Are you going where you thought? Are the people around you safe and not frightened?
Know Where You Are Going. This was a big one for me. I was famous for and sometimes still do head out in one direction when my destination is in another. Make a map in your head. Consult it occasionally. Are you headed where you intend to go? If you are wandering, is that what you want to do? All vehicles come equipped with a GPS (a God Problem Solver). If you’re feeling disoriented or even lost, consult it: that is why it was put there.
Turn on Your Lights in the Dark. Don’t try to drive into the night on exterior lights. Street lights and highway lights are not meant to help the individual drivers find their ways. They are meant to look good in movies and disturb the ambient darkness of the country between interstates. No, you have been given headlights to see into the distance. You only need to see a few feet ahead, but you do need to light your own way, from within, and not count on anyone outside. The Designer of the car gave them to you – use them. But He only designed them to see a few feet into the distance. Don’t try to see beyond that, you’ll squint and make lines around your eyes. The Designer knew what He was doing, have a little faith in Him, and in the road ahead. Only if it gets really dark, then you can use high beams, but be warned, they won’t help you see further, only illuminate what you could already see pretty clearly before.
Right of Way. This is one of my favorite expressions. RIGHT of way. It means that one vehicle in a situation has the right to take primacy over another. In our heads we know the rules of right of way – Who was there first? Who is on the right of whom? Is someone turning? We call these the Rules of the Road but we might as well call them ethics. We learned them through teaching or observation or cultural osmosis, but in any case, we all know them. The question is, do you follow them? Do you go through the day putting the Right in Right of Way? Are you doing the right thing, even when the good thing is easier? Do you recognize who has the Right of Way in an intersection even if it isn’t you? In every situation, at every intersection, at every stop or merge or junction, be aware of the Right of Way. Because if you don’t know the Right of Way, you might get left. You don’t always need to go first, it may not be your turn. But you always need to know the Right of Way.
So you’ve got a good car, you’re trying to be a reasonably good driver and you’re taking it in on Sundays – for the regular Service. What if you screw up? What if you look up into the mirror and see flashing lights? You have to stop what you’re doing, pull out of the flow and then you have to answer questions like, “Who are you?” and “Where are you going?” and “What were you thinking?” You’re accountable, you have to examine what you were doing when you went wrong and, worst of all, you may have to pay penance. I myself have had to pay penance in the amount of $150 this week alone. This is not a bad thing, necessarily. The Designer reaches down and snaps you to attention. Don’t miss the message. Stop. And. Think.
Or here’s one: what if you’re going a long minding your own business and someone crashes into you? This I can speak to personally. I was crashed into by a car called Cancer and you know what? It almost totaled me. My emotional airbag definitely deployed. On my chest. But in the end here’s what I learned: I have some damage to the outside of my vehicle. There it is; nothing I can do about it. But inside, I am a vastly better driver. I have confidence in my training and in the design of my car. I’m changed, no longer the way I looked when I came off the assembly line, but inside, if anything, I am a better driver for knowing that I can survive a crash.
You honor your vehicle with what you put into it and how well you drive it. In the end the whole package is who you are – the healthy outside and the faithful inside – and it is a worship filled vehicle. It all comes full circle, and in answer to C.S.’s unasked question: no you would not treat it differently knowing the car is a loan because the driver and the car were brought together by the great Car Salesman in the sky. He knew what he was getting you into and his judgment is flawless.
But here’s my last word. It’s about your horn. Every car is equipped with a horn standard. I beg of you, don’t lean on the horn all day and night. The horn is there so that you can tell others that you are there and they are about to trespass on you. The horn is preventative. If you lean on the horn, “witness” from your steering wheel every waking hour, you’re just going to piss people off in traffic, me among them. If you want to make a statement buy a bumper sticker. If you want to be an example of the perfection of the Designer, be a good driver, silently go on your way, and don’t spout off in traffic with me. Be a safe driver, use your turn signals, keep to your lane and we’ll all be happier.
