September, 2010 | bekahcubed

Auto Loyalists?

September 1, 2010 2 Comments by bekahcubed

To me, the most memorable vehicle my family has owned was a white Ford Econoline van. It was a twelve passenger “extended”–which meant that it was the size of a 15 passenger vehicle but with only enough seats for 12 passengers.

Nebraska student drivers have an option of taking driver’s ed or of logging 50 hours of supervised driving in a variety of settings prior to getting their driver’s license. I logged most of my hours in our Ford van, driving it to church and back and back and forth from Lincoln to my grandparents’ farm in northeastern Nebraska.

So I’ve always sort of identified my parents as Ford folk.

Then, one day my brother and I got to talking. He said, “You know, the folks are pretty much GM people, aren’t they?”

I was aghast. Seriously?

Timothy began to count up the cars.

Currently, they own a Chevy Suburban, a Buick, and a Chevy Lumina.

Before that, they owned several Chevy Celebrity wagons (was it two or three?). Mom’s previous car, “The Silver Mullet”, was another GM granny car. And the precursor to the white Ford van was a red conversion van, undoubtedly GM as well. Those are the only cars Timothy remembers–and I wasn’t paying attention to makes and models of their forerunners.

Mom enlightened me in a later conversation. Turns out the second most memorable car of my childhood was also a Ford. It was a two ton all-steel Green Station wagon–a hulking behemoth we named the “Zucchini Car”. I think that might have been the car we ran into a light pole with–the light pole came down but the car didn’t have a scratch. The “Zucchini car” finally met its end when we were driving to church and saw smoke rising from the hood. We rolled into a gas station and piled out of the car while Dad made tracks inside for a fire extinguisher. We ended up walking the rest of the way to church.

So my folks really weren’t (and aren’t) brand loyal at all. They bought what was economically feasible, what could fit our family. Given the tiny tendencies of foreign cars, it’s not unsurprising that they have generally owned American-made vehicles.

I’m not sure if any of us kids have developed any brand loyalties–but it’s clear that we’ve tended towards foreign cars.

My first car was a Chevy, but I’ve since owned a Honda and a Subaru.

Now, of the four kids who own cars, only one is domestic:

I guess we’re not exactly what you could call Auto Loyalists.

Book Notes, Following Christ

Pleasure seeking

September 1, 2010 Leave a comment by bekahcubed

To be human is to be a pleasure-seeker.

We are fond of thinking of the dissipated fellow partying all night, drunken, sleeping around, and experimenting with drugs as a pleasure-seeker. We are not likely to think of the sturdy fellow who goes to school, gets a job, and raises a family as a pleasure-seeker. Instead, we call him a level-headed chap. Then there are the philanthropists and volunteers. We call them altruistic. Certainly they are not pleasure-seekers. And finally, there is the missionary who travels to a different land to face certain death. He cannot be a pleasure-seeker, we say. We either call him crazy or a hero for his self-sacrifice.

Yet each of these is a pleasure-seeker.

Pleasure seeking does not distinguish one man from another, for pleasure seeking is a trait common to man. What separates one man from another is not that he seeks pleasure, but what he seeks pleasure in.

Furthermore, what separates one man from another is his relative success at not only seeking but finding pleasure.

The dissipated man is forever chasing a fleeting pleasure, a buzz that quickly fades. The steady man may have traded these “buzzes” for the pleasures of stability and comfort. The altruistic man has denied the buzz of the dissipated man–and perhaps even the stability and comforts of the stead man–for the pleasures of “doing the right thing” or the laud of other men.

All of these are pleasure-seekers, seeking pleasure in a variety of things. Each man trades some form of pleasure for another, depending on what he feels most likely to bring him long term pleasure. Some pleasures last longer than others. None of these last forever.

The Christian does the same thing. The difference is that while all these other pleasures are earthly and momentary, the Christian knows the source of true eternal pleasure.

The Chinese believers who face certain death as they seek a way into North Korea to share the gospel of Christ crucified and risen–they do so in pursuit of pleasure. They deem Christ the highest pleasure t be found–and are thus willing to forgo even fleshly life itself in order to chase after Him.

Crazy?

Only if God is not the eternal source of pleasure.

Heroes?

Perhaps.

Or maybe just the ultimate in pleasure-seekers.

God-seekers

(This is the beginning of my notes and reflections on Desiring God by John Piper. See other notes on the same topic by clicking the Desiring God tag.)