Getting Passed by the Fish

So I'm biking in to work Wednesday morning, and I've just turned onto Regent Drive near the Crieve Hall neighborhood, when a string of cars passes me. It's about 7 am, so everybody's leaving for work at once. It's basically what I expect from my morning commute at the top and the bottom of the hour.

Anyhow, one of the cars passes me very close. Again, no surprise. It's that time of the morning, people are heading for work and they hate their jobs, so (for some reason) they hate the guy on the bicycle that is keeping them from getting to the job that they hate (they should be thanking me!).

No, the surprise was the big fish stuck on the back of the car.

Now, I'm not saying that Christians are perfect, or even any better than the members of any other religion, or non-religion, or group, or anarchy, or insert-here-anything-left-over-so-I-don't-piss-you-off. I'm not saying that they are worse, either. I'm trying not to hurt anybody's feelings, even though I know that this post is going to do this. Because, for some reason, you can't make an observation that has religious overtones without ticking everybody off.

No, all I'm trying to say is this: If you're going to go to the trouble of sticking a big magnet on the back of your car that supposedly proselytizes a belief system, you should kind of follow the tenets of that belief system.

Which got me to thinking ...

How Would Jesus Drive?

Now, I like to think that Jesus would ride a bicycle. Twin Six, which does all of the Fat Cyclist jersey's as well as a lot of other cool stuff, apparently agrees, since they have a really cool poster.

The only problem that I have with this depiction is that Jesus is riding a fixed gear bike (or at least a singlespeed, since there are no visible shifters) with no brakes and no helmet. Also, I think that His robe could easily get caught in the chain, and that worries me. But, He looks like He's having a blast, tooling around hands free, so His heart is obviously in that righteous Jesus place. And, given His record for miracles, He probably won't have any trouble doing a perfect skip stop.

Twin Six used to have a t-shirt with What Would Jesus Ride, but they seem to have discontinued that. It was pretty cool, and I think it was also in the right spirit, but I think that it pissed some people off.

Some people just take things too seriously.

But, back to How Would Jesus Drive. Frankly, I think this would be a great catch phrase for the Three-Foot Law. I'm going from what I read in the Bible and saw in a few Cecil B. DeMille movies, but Jesus strikes me as the kind of Lord who would obey the Three-Foot Law. Actually, He strikes me as the kind of driver that wouldn't really need to be told to keep three-feet between His vehicle and any bicycle that He might pass.

Do unto others, and all that, you know.

I would love to see a poster with Jesus driving a car (probably a hybrid ... maybe with a Star of David magnet on the back), passing a bicycle, with arrows showing that He is giving the cyclist three feet of space. Jesus, with the long hair and halo, would be waving, and the cyclist would wave back. At the bottom, the poster would say "How Would Jesus Drive?" and, below it, "www.tennessee3feet.org."

A real Christian would see this poster and get it.

Funny thing: When I was researching this (well, yeah, I kind of research my blogs ... in a way), I ran across a Cascade Bicycle Club discussion thread asking "What Would Jesus Bike?" This answer killed me:

While there are no clues about his bike, the Christian Bible tells us about what kind of car Jesus had. We all know that Jesus drove a Plymouth. It says in John, regarding the money lenders: "And in His Fury he drove them out." Jesus was also obviously an advocate of car pooling. As it says in Acts, "And the Disciples were all of one Accord."

That must have been the Accord wagon. Although, again, if You can feed five thousand people with five loaves of bread and a couple of fish, then I'm sure that You can fit 12 guys into any car You want.

Anywho ...

My point here (and, yes, I do have one) is that I expect bad behavior from certain cars when they pass me. Don't ask me why, but red trucks are usually the worst. And I can generally look over and see bumper stickers of a specific political ilk (you know who I mean) far too easily ... and if I can read them, they're too close. Some people claim that the more expensive the car is, the more likely it is to pass in a bad spot. But I've been buzzed by Hummers and junkers, with no true trend along economic lines.

If you're going to claim to live your life according to Somebody's teachings, then do it all of the time. You can't just toss out a belief system when it's expedient ... or when you're late for work.