A Preview of Domestication

From Tuesday to Thursday I experienced life from the driver's seat of a minivan. For reasons which I will explain below, we were in a Toyota Sienna (I'm not sure of the year, but it was pretty recent, I think 2007ish). Now first of all let me say that I was happy just to have a vehicle, but there were connotations that went with minivans in my mind. Connected with minivans were categories like soccer moms, suburbia, picket-fences, middle-age, no acceleration - in short, domestication. Minivans didn't have horsepower, they had ox-power. Minivans could often be traced as the chronological predecessor to the sports-car; they were the vehicular cause of the mid-life crisis.

So it was with a bizarrely mixed sense of profound appreciation for having a vehicle, excitement at the prospect of driving a new vehicle, and suppressed chagrin that the vehicle was so tame that I stepped behind the wheel of a minivan. Immediately, the chagrin went away. The blast of the air conditioner was insanely refreshing. My own car has been without an air conditioner this entire year, so Lara and I had gotten used to having the sun-roof open and the windows down. Also, Tuesday morning I had already walked a few miles in the increasingly hot day. Now I was chillin' like a villain in a meat locker. I could feel the sweat on my neck solidifying.

Then I pulled onto the road and joined the flow of traffic, cautiously at first, since this was not my vehicle. But gradually I began to test the minivan and found that it actually performed better than I had expected it to. The dashboard was a great deal more complicated than that of my 2000 Honda Civic, and I only barely kept myself from trying out the buttons before I got home. Once I got there, however, I discovered that the side doors were automatic! Shazam! Lara and I became very skilled at finding reasons why we needed to open those doors.

Seriously, though, the minivan was very convenient at a time when we really needed some encouragement. On Monday night I posted a blog that identified three ways in which I felt we were being challenged spiritually: our car, money, and Lara's mom's health. Tuesday, I started my car and discovered that it was spewing oil. Three seals on the back of the engine had busted at the same time. I asked the mechanics about this and they said that this sort of thing rarely happened. It cost us several hundred dollars to fix. Finally, while I was in Tyler dealing with the car, Lara got a call that the biopsy analysis on the mass taken from her mom's brain had revealed that the mass was a type 4 brain cancer - the most malignant sort. Needless to say, it was a difficult day, and one in which I questioned whether I had been foolhardy to post the Monday's blog.

My conclusion though is this: the combination of circumstances are too perfect for me to accept as mere coincidence. I know that this may be naive, but I am choosing to be naive and trust in the description of reality I see in the Bible until God is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to have failed. And in the midst of difficulties, I want to proclaim how wonderful he is being to supply us a rather fun experience in driving a minivan with automatic side doors, stowable rear seats, nice AC, a thermometer and MPG readout, comfortable electric seats, and plenty of room to bring our gear with us for two days. So despite the crazy stress of this week, it has actually been a week of blessing. Therefore, if there is an intelligent spiritual opposition out there, consider this a thumbed nose in your general direction.