I spent much of last week in a fog. Literally. And I don’t mean the usual gray of a Michigan winter. Sadly, we’re accustomed to that. We know what it’s like to go days without a ray of sunshine lighting our path. No, this was thick, impenetrable fog that made it difficult to see more than 10 car lengths ahead of me.
I was commuting to Lansing three days a week: eighty minutes each way. We knew when I accepted the position that winter was going to be a challenge. Slippery roads and poor visibility are a given in January. The weather conditions we feared arrived in full force last week.
Driving nervously in a thick fog, my sight was limited to the cars immediately near me. My goal was to follow their lead without getting too close. We’ve all seen the images on the evening news of vehicle pileups when the road ahead disappears into a mist, hiding a parking lot of stopped cars. With those images in mind, I carefully regulated my positioning to the nearest vehicles.
So, what captured my attention in this narrowed line of vision? License plates. I had to shake my head because the license plates on the two vehicles in front of me offered messages that were hardly encouraging on our blind commute. They were vanity plates that had been carefully selected.
The first plate was this: SKRWIT.
So how would you interpret that? It’s like reading Hebrew, where you have to decide which vowels are missing to complete the message. It seems quite clear to me that an E is missing between the R and the W to offer a message of detachment from the world. It is a more coarse rendition of the ever popular phrase, “Whatever.” In exasperated moments, I have found this to be a useful expression! It stems from a moment of either helplessness or disgust when I feel like I can’t alter the circumstances that surround me. I throw up my hands and decide that I don’t have to do anything to make a difference in my world. I give up. “It is what it is,” we murmur in a defeatist mood. These phrases are handy when we want to let ourselves off the hook from doing a hard thing in difficult circumstances.
This was not a very encouraging message when praying fervently to make it to my office in one piece.
The second license plate was this: MOERON.
Again, the message is open to interpretation. In this case, it’s a question of eliminating a vowel to give a clear rendition of the meaning. Moron? This was the message I received as a car bravely, and perhaps foolishly, passed me on the left. It’s hard not to take that license plate as a personal insult when there’s nothing else to focus on. Am I a moron, I had to ask myself? Am I a fool for commuting to Lansing to be able to offer grief support to those have lost loved ones? Was I endangering my own life in my commitment to ministering to the bereaved of a community 80 minutes away from my home? Was I a moron to leave my home on such a foggy day when roads were slick and visibility was virtually nil? Or was this driver sounding off about a relationship in their own life that had soured? Was this the message chosen after a bitter divorce? Or was it someone with low self-esteem who boosted their fragile ego by putting others down? These were the sorts of involuntary reflections that crossed my mind as this car skated past me on an icy winter highway.
A Proclamation to the World
A fair amount of thinking has to go into choosing a vanity plate. The first step is to consider the essence of the message I wish to convey. The point obviously is to turn my car into a sort of billboard for a particular cause. What cause is nearest and dearest to my heart? The second challenge comes with finding lettering that will convey that message. I have to compose a license plate that no one else has claimed first. This sometimes necessitates getting creative with a combination of letters and numbers that correctly advertise our motto. We screw it onto our vehicle and hit the road with an excitement that the motorists on the highways and byways we travel will be our unwitting audience. When I was subjected to those two license plates on a perilous morning, driving through mist in the dark, I reflected on the two individuals who had labored to craft their proclamation to the world: SCREW IT and MORON.
I have a vanity license plate. I never particularly wanted one but a unique set of circumstances prompted me to be more reflective on my life. In 2020, as the mysterious virus called COVID was threatening to shut down our world, our church was collecting toiletry items for our denomination’s community outreach. The entryway to our church was piled high with our Lenten donations. Our governor proclaimed that the statewide lockdown would begin on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17. There would be no drunken green beer bashes that would morph into super spreader events! On March 16, I loaded up my car and drove south, finding two fine gentlemen eager to unload our donations in spite of the looming risk of this mystery disease. As they closed my back hatch, they asked about my missing license plate. Missing? It was there when I started the trip! I took back roads home, hoping to avoid police scrutiny. I parked my car in the garage where it sat unused and license-less for many weeks. I had time to order a new plate and decided to take the opportunity afforded by a global pandemic to shape a message. After a few changes to my original inspiration, I had my aluminum sermon: 4GIVTOO.
What Message do You Offer?
What is the “elevator speech” to your life? Who is in your sphere of influence? Do you offer a message that builds up those who are near, whether friend or stranger? Do you thank those who offer words of encouragement and let them know how they have blessed you? When faced with overwhelming challenges, do you scan your surroundings for messages that embolden you to use your gifts or do you throw in the towel and let others deal with it?
We have all had periods in our life when we felt as if we were in a fog. These disorienting moments sensitize us to those who have lost their way. Kindness brings clarity when vision is impaired. Our willingness to be present to someone in the midst of their trouble brings a measure of peace. In these meaningful encounters, words have power. They can mend hearts. A loving message can move mountains. We are repeatedly surprised to discover that our desire to bless others swings back and becomes a source of enrichment for us. The fog lifts. A ray of sunshine parts the darkness. Together, we make our way.
Laurie is an ordained pastor who recently retired from more than 30 years in parish ministry to pursue chaplaincy. She is a spiritual director and retreat leader through her own company, Sunflower Spiritual Direction (sunflowerspiritualdirection.net). She is a grief counselor for Heartland Hospice and author of a book on worship. She loves time spent with her family, cooking good meals, and traveling. You may follow her reflections at preachinglife.net