People never cease to amaze me. Day after day I see interesting things in the news. Stories about people clinging to various beliefs or viewpoints and taking their reasoning to the extreme. Maybe we are built towards being advocates for ideas. Perhaps there is a biological link in our brains that demands us to choose a side and stick with it through thick and thin. To make up our mind and put down the stress of thinking through different ideas and scenarios. It can be exhausting to consider multiple sides of social issues and form opinions on a case by case basis. It is much easier to find something that rings true and sell-out in favor of an idea.

Welfare = lazy (Many good people need help but many people abuse the system)

Guns = Make things safer/ more dangerous. (Toddlers with handguns have killed more Americans than terrorists over the past year. There are several reported incidents of home invasion thwarted by self-defense.)

Married but Sad > Divorced but Happy (I have some awesome parents and step-parents. Divorce is hard on kids and leaves lasting effects.)

Boobs = Good (Pretty sure this one is 100% true all the time)

We develop rules of thumb(s) so we don’t have to think about things. This is the reason that stereotypes are so popular, people feel like they save time. Next thing you know people are looking for evidence to support a bias. I think about a verse in the bible in the book of Matthew, “seek, and ye shall find”.

Such a true statement but in a different way to me than the original intent. I think if you look somewhere hard enough you can justify just about anything. Sometimes the easiest person to lie to is yourself.

I try to keep an open mind and think through issues but sometimes people make such bizarre decisions that I have trouble figuring out their logic. About a month ago we were travelling down the interstate and I could see something dancing in the distance. There was something hovering above the cars and dancing through traffic. A white rabbit teasing me from afar. I pressed the gas and at around eighty five miles per hour I started to gain on it. The curves and the eighteen wheelers obscured my line of sight and for a moment I thought I lost my UFO (unidentified floating object). Then I saw it.

I was impressed. Here was a man at war for his beliefs. To the untrained eye this man is a passionate believer with external enthusiasm. I see total commitment. As I passed him on the highway I noticed that he was fully dressing in a jacket and tie, his Sunday best on a Friday. The dent in the hatchback door tells me that this is a man looking forward. A man who is completely unconcerned with the things that are behind him. His decal says, “Jesus is my co-pilot” and a can of shoe polish makes sure that no potential space for foreboding messages goes unused. I imagine he stood back from his rolling biblical billboard and thought, “Nice… but there is still something missing. I need something that pops.” That’s when divine inspiration struck him. Nothing draws attention to a vinyl cross decal like a life-sized 3-D cross mounted on the roof of a vehicle.

This is where my appreciation truly began. As an engineer I was drawn to his consideration for anchoring the cross. He used cables with clamps and bolted them directly to his roof in four locations. His design could clearly withstand winds in excess of eighty miles per hour, probably gusts up to one hundred and ten miles per hour. But what really convinced me that this man had an unwavering confidence in his salvation was his tires. They were truly a bold, yet bald, testament to this man’s priorities.

If you have passion that grabs you in the middle of the night and says, “Arise, adorn your Jeep Grand Cherokee and go forth…” this post is for you. You’re welcome. If you are the owner of this Jeep Grand Cherokee, high five! I enjoyed the break from the monotony of a cross-state trip. Ps- Change those tires. Everyone is appointed a time to die but I believe we should try and limit the options.

-Underdaddy to the rescue.