Return of the ichtyhs

A friend asked me the other day why my car does not have a Jesus fish on it.

You know the ones.

Those little rounded Christian fish symbols - the same ones that some rather snide but brilliant marketing minds borrowed and then added the word "Darwin" in the middle or little feet on the bottom. And sold them by the millions. Lovely little joke, isn't it? Ha ha ha hilarious. I roll my eyes in the general direction of the Darwin fishes. The Star Trek version is much more inventive.

The REAL fish is called the ichtyhs. These days though, and perhaps it is my southern California locale, but I do see more more of the parodied versions than the original ichtyhs. One of the most recent version of the Darwinian take on the Christian symbol gracing more than a few cars in this neck of the woods seems to show the Darwin fish ingesting the ichtyhs. A never-ending cycle, the latest evolution of this self-perpetuating parody is a bigger ichtyhs with the word "TRUTH" in it, eating the fomer-top-of-the-food-chain Darwin fish.

Not surprisingly, I like this latest version.

I remember the first time I saw this ichtyhs fish of TRUTH eating the Darwin fish bumper decoration. It was on the most ancient, rattly, held-together-with-prayer-and-duct tape pick-up truck specimen I have seen in a long while. Primer seemed to be it's most dominant color and the back bumper was actually tied to the body of the truck on with yellow nylon cord in several places. The original gas cap had been replaced with a ramshackle replacement, and the handle for the pick up bed had long since rusted out. It had a Jack-N-The-Box antenna ball (deeply cool) and an In-And-Out-Burger sticker on the other side of the precariously attached rear bumper (even more cool).

I was so jazzed to see this new bumper sticker that I waved furiously, grinning from ear to ear at the driver as I approached his car from the left side. When his face came into view, I recall vividly flashing back to Grizzly Adams memories from my childhood. I also saw the big green sparkling cross dangling from his rear view mirror. He waved and smiled back at me, giving me the thumbs up - the universal symbol for "you rock".

So Grizzly Adams is evidently a blazing Christian and though his choice of vehicles is uniquely suspect, he has fantastic taste in bumper decor. Let's just hope his bumper lasts in place awhile longer, because it'd be a shame to lose that element of cool which was eloquently redeeming his otherwise pretty dodgy mode of transportation. I take heart that there are rugged manly-men who LOVE GOD with such overt abandon.

As for me, my friend was correct to notice that I don't have an ichtyhs fish on my car. In fact, there is nothing on my car but a sad lot of dust and salty ocean residue, lots of tragic insect remains smattered across my grill and windshield, and the words "FORD" and "ESCAPE" that were there when we bought the car brand new and drove it off the lot. I have a good reason for not including a Jesus fish, but I am ashamed to admit it.

The reason, you see, is two fold. Both are legitimate, but the second one plays a far heavier role in my decision to forgo the ichtyhs.

First, it kept getting stolen. I tried several times in high school and college to keep an ichtyhs intact on my bumper, but my sweet little fishies kept getting pinched by random, anonymous thieves. So there is that.

That, and...

I am not the best driver. This is the real reason. Please don't mishear me - I am a courteous, kind driver, and love to share the road and enjoy the whole driving experience. But this is not always a good thing. Though I try everyday to show kindness and generosity to other drivers, I still cannot seem to drive with a confident degree of consistency. And I do not want Jesus to be associated (via the ichtyhs fish) with a driving mistake I may make. I am not overtly dangerous, but let us just politely say that driving is not my strong point.

Some days I am Speed Racer. Other days, I am Driving Miss Daisy. Some days I feel like a space cadet behind the wheel - one or two beats off the rhythm of life - strangely not seeing Stop signs until they are behind me as I accidentally blow through them, and wondering why everyone else seems to be mad that I inadvertently slowed down because I was watching the sunset. I have been known to drive while talking on my cell phone (much to Copper's alarm - so this trend is curbing gradually). I have also been known to drive while painting my toenails (my feet were up on the dashboard, not that this betters my case any) or while unwrapping and attemping to ingest a Freebirds monster veggie burrito.

Copper says I have driving-induced ADHD. Even though I have only been involved in three accidents since I was seventeen, and none of them were caused by me, (they all involved my car being smashed into by another car - once when I was not even present inside my car) I am just not the best driver in the world. I know this. I am at home with this reality. But, as driving seems to evidentally not be my best ministry, I have thus concluded that my CAR is not the most ideal place to display my love for Christ.

I would never want anyone to see my ichtyhs fish and associate Jesus with bad driving. I'd essentially never want to hear, "the lady in that 'Jesus fish car' cut me off". Oh my. Ichthys-fish-meets-road-rage is not a pleasant scenario to imagine. I would feel horridly guilty for weeks. Not only for what I had done, but for representing Christianity so poorly for whomever I inadvertently committed a driving sin upon.

So until my driving skills become a bit more consistent (it's only been 14 years since I got my license - and I AM improving, so there is reason to hope), my ichtyhs fish will remain written on my heart and displayed in my life, but not on my car.

But I have a tremendous deal of respect for my dear fellow driver, Grizzly Adams, who wears his heart on his sleeve (or rather, his bumper) no matter how he drives or what his truck looks like. THIS is the kind of person I endeavor to be. Open, unafraid, exuberant, unapologetically being who I am without compromise and loving God fiercely enough to display crosses and ichtyhs on my car. No matter what it looked like or who was driving it.

Because on both counts, the real message and truest value lies within. And even if his driving is less than flawless, is that not the point? That God loves us despite our imperfections, and in fact, that revealing our flaws to others is one of the most real ways to understand that Christianity is not something to be attained or earned by the perpetually perfect, but offered as a gift to everyone, even those who paint their toenails while driving? My heart is so immature in Christ sometimes. There is more than one lesson I can learn from this man's glowing heart for God contained in his ruddy, salt of the earth truck.

It is my hope that I eventually earn back my right to proudly showcase my ichtyhs on my car once again. But it is my more potent hope that God works on my heart until I develop courage and wisdom to be able to display my ichtyhs symbol despite my driving skills, not because of them. And when I reach that point, I do plan to get the Darwin-fish-chomping TRUTH version, and it is my hope that it stays put this time and is not summarily removed by the little Darwin versions on nearby vehicles, who use their little feet to walk over to my car and abscond with my Jesus fish because the parking lot became an unwelcome parking environment with my ichtyhs in plain view.

Little thieves.

Survival of the fittest, my foot.