WWJD- What Would Jesus Drive?

As I mentioned in my last blog installment, we live very close to Corona del Mar High School. We moved into our home in late June after the school year had finished so we were unaware until just this week how busy the nearby streets become during session. We know now.

I do most of my writing at the Newport Beach Public Library, as I unfortunately have yet to develop the fortitude to overlook the distractions of home (television, internet, refrigerator and cat). On a recent afternoon, as I was headed home I was made aware of the importance of coordinating travel time around the end of the school day and conversely, the start of it in the morning. The cars lined up and out onto the area’s major thoroughfare, Jamboree Boulevard. It reminded me of what it’s like when you’re waiting to park at a large arena or coliseum for a concert or sporting event. What really struck me were the luxury cars that were waiting in line in front of me, behind me and seemingly all around me.

I had no frame of reference for it as I can’t think of any place I’ve ever been with such a display of automotive wealth. Not even the auto shows I’ve attended over the years compared as strewn amongst the exhibited luxury and fantasy cars are always the latest domestic models from Detroit. Here, I routinely see Bentleys, 7-series BMWs, L-series Lexus’, gigantic 12-mpg Mercedes SUVs and more. Equally as interesting as the cars are the drivers: more perfectly coiffed blonde and brunette Mom’s than you’d see on a Real Housewives of Orange County marathon. Nor could I miss the glitter of diamonds and gems that adorned the fingers gripping the steering wheels. Noticeable too were the big, over-sized bejeweled Chanel sunglasses that seem like a requisite accessory for the O.C. mom-on-the-go.

I cannot proclaim to know the political or religious affiliations of any of these women, but, hey, this is Orange County after all, so it’s not exactly going out on a limb to predict that the trend is towards the conservative. Nor is it a stretch to imagine that of those who lament the fact that the O.C. is a little red atoll in the big blue sea that is coastal California are more likely to include faith as a major component of their Republicanism. Of course, without getting out of my car and wrapping my knuckles on the driver’s side window so as to ask the question directly, it’s therefore an assumption for which I can’t just be like the President and “trust my gut”. It’s sad to think of just how much better off the country would be if he were like the rest of us and relied on his stomach solely to tell him when it needs to be filled and emptied.

I tried to think of a way that I could lend some credibility to my hypothesis and came up with a silly way to do just that. I decided I’d drive through the parking lot over at the Mariner’s Church. It’s a non-denominational Evangelical Christian Joel Osteen-scale mega-church, located just a few scant miles from where we live. I won’t say that the Mom’s in line to pick up their kids from CDMHS apparently beeline it over to Mariner’s for afterschool Bible study activities, but the half-full lot had its fair share of imports. Though I didn’t see any Bentleys or Maseratis (another area favorite), every other German, Japanese and domestic luxury brand was accounted for. For fun I looked to see if I could spot any opulent autos with conservative bumper stickers, or those little chrome Jesus-fishies that you see often enough. I found a few, but I didn’t see any examples of what I’d hoped to find as well: pious vanity license plates, like GO W GOD or RUSAVED.

I know next to nothing about organized religion as, growing up, it was not a major part of my life. My blue collar parents belonged to the Church of Hard Knocks and Harder Work and only sent me through Catholic Catechism and Confirmation in an effort to placate my father’s mother, a rosary-toting, broken-English speaking French Canadian woman who, when I was little, would give me quarters as long as I promised to not grow my hair long like my older brothers and then in my adolescence, dollar bills when I would fib and tell her I wanted to be a priest. Keep in mind, coins and currency went a lot further in the 1970s, so my paternal grandmother helped keep me for years in fireballs, candy dot paper, red rope licorice and Mary Jane’s (the chewy confection, not the shoes).

That said, I’m no expert on Scripture save for those bits from Leviticus about how my life with Fred is an abomination. I’ve read the counterarguments about the inconclusiveness of those passages in their original Hebrew as well some of the other later proclamations from Leviticus that mandate that naughty, mouthy kids be stoned to death (how did I survive past ten?), rapists marry their victims and that all places of business, especially seafood restaurants, cease operations on the last day of the week. Since there is to this day a disagreement about whether or not the Sabbath is actually Saturday or Sunday, I say, why risk it? Close for the weekend.

From my scant Catholic education I remember too something from the Gospel of Luke about selling your possessions and giving the proceeds to the poor if you are serious about a permanent reservation in the afterlife. Still, prosperous Evangelicals and less prosperous ones who wish to be like them always bring up that stuff about being fruitful and multiplying, which apparently in modern times relates not just to offspring, but private property and retirement accounts.

I can’t speculate as to what Jesus would drive but I’d like to think that it would resemble something more like the little beat-up economy car in the catchy Free Credit Report.com T.V. commercial. I think too that after a good glimpse of the grossly materialistic nature of many of his believers around here, he’d mutter a tsk-tsk and simply skip all the remaining Orange County freeway exits on his way up Interstate 5 to L.A. and the Bay Area.


Next week: The Newfound Popularity of Ice Hockey in Orange County