We named our car “Israel” with the hope that an early lemon, an obvious Jacob, would be transformed. Thanks to a warranty where Ford paid and paid, new transmission, new steering, the car kept going. He was never a pleasure to drive, almost always failing somewhere, but drive we did. In fact, we got a lot of good out this automobile. He took us to Texas, enough to earn gratitude, and helped us flee burning California. We had hoped he had another year in him, but Ford was not so gracious, and the estimates ballooned. Israel required repairs costing many times more than he was worth.
We sent him, our flawed old auto, to Vroom, God help him.
This brings us to things and our attachment to them if we spend enough time with them. Our auto took us to amazing places, helped us get to Church, got groceries, was a second home. We slept there, ate there, lived there. We thought of the automobile as him, the car, Israel.
This is not a mistake, but an act of creation. We dignified this very poor construction, this Fusion from a bad year, with our affection. We were thankful for his service. Naturally we know that this thing is not truly ensouled, there is no eternity for the Ford Israel. We did not give our car the love that only a person should have. We did not even love our car as much as the cat Athena, much higher in the hierarchy of the cosmos.
And yet we gave our car character over time, certainly a smell (!), and came to have an appropriate affection. As children of a Creator, we create. We gave our automobile a name and a certain transitory dignity. He was our car and we came to like him. Some things, better than Israel, say the etching received from Father Michael, are greater still. They have deeper value, because Father and the faithful have helped give them value. None of “it” can be as valuable as one human child, but all of it can gain from contact with us.
We are the children of God and so we can give our toys a certain life. We see this in children who make a velveteen rabbit real or at least “realish.” My Teddy adventured with me for many years and has now gone, I do not know where, but when I was a baby boy Toddy was real to me. I bet you have had some excellent toy, some prized possession, where without sin you gained a small, appropriate affection. You might, as we did with the car Israel, even find yourself talking to the thing. “Goodbye,” when I knew he was being hauled away, not with much sorrow, but with some.
We will never haul children of our own in a backseat again.
There is no fear that Israel would ever be confused with a person or even with the good dog Nessie. She was a manmade object, unthinking, some metal, but she was also the product of a culture, of stupendous science, and industry. She was not the best product, in fact a bit unsteady, but she would have been a miracle one hundred years ago. In just the right mood, I could love that car! And so it should go with all our possessions: we give them appropriate dignity and then in their time let them go. Whatever good they gave us will be recalled in eternity where nothing good is ever lost or forgotten.
All stuff, especially too much stuff, is not like the car Israel. One way of knowing when one has too much stuff is when one cannot love the things one has. The junk drawer is not calling us to create meaning, but is full of junk. Perhaps, almost certainly, we should send the junk drawer to where junk goes. I have known men, messed up men, who thought more of their auto than their children. This is sad, but does not mean that elevating human creations appropriately is wrong. They were an excess of a natural tendency.
I hope Israel helps another soul or if not goes back to the Earth from whence he came.
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