The Parable of the Car Heater
With a very busy year end schedule at work, and all the usual holiday stuff, I found little time to take the car to the mechanic. I also figured maybe I could go green and wear a jacket. That didn't help much during some of the coldest days I've ever felt in LA (so much for global warming) but I sucked it up.
A friend was visiting with town with her infant and I was to pick her up at the airport Wednesday evening. I figured for the baby's sake I better get that heater fixed, so I did. Of course, the heater was repaired just in time for the first 70 degree day in the Valley in some time.
This morning I was in the car quite early and it was a bit nippy outside. I was just sucking up being a tad frio and realized - hey the heater works now. I turned it on and was quickly enveloped in some warm, comforting heat.
It reminded me of how we're also enveloped by the presence of God. 2 Corinthians 1:3-5 (New Living Translation) tells us:
3 All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. 4 He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us. 5 For the more we suffer for Christ, the more God will shower us with his comfort through Christ.
Like the car heater I can switch and be warm. I can always reach out to God and know I am loved and protected.
And I don't even need a mechanic for that.
Labels: 2 Corinthians, parables
Posted by Michael Higby @ 1/15/2011 12:27:00 AM
37 Comments:
You've got to be kidding me.
And God said: Let there be heat in the automobiles of the humanoids. And there was heat. Humans had nothing to do with the heat that warmed them even though they invented it, designed it, built it, and improved it. No, it sure was God who provided. It was a miracle. And therefore, when we turn the heater knob on, let us close our eyes, say a prayer to God, and hope we do not drive left of center.
Is he messing with us?
I don't think he's kidding us, Joe B., I think Higby's on to something here - a daily parable or other reference to scripture that can be relevant in the world of sinners, aka Los Angeles City Hall.
I'm no scholar of scripture, but perhaps one piece of biblical verse that those who swim in the trough of local politics should be reminded of is a "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
The Spring Street Gang last got a graphic taste of the consequences of disobeying that simple maxim back in 2009 when Jack Weiss was removed from political life by an electorate who repaid his disrespect for them by disrespecting him at the ballot box.
Unfortunately, the then champion of the masses, Carmen the Clown Trutanich, who the Daily News once described as the 'People's Lawyer," seems to have quickly forgotten the "lesson of Jack," and is now very much a "get along to get on" kinda guy.
Almost everyone who supported Trutanich has had a dose of buyers remorse as they've seen him renege on campaign promise after campaign promise. Most recently, his silence over the CRA's move to stash the cash before Governor Brown can end their Bernie Madoff antics, shows just how low he can go (see Ron Kaye's report).
There was a time when the People's Lawyer "did the right thing" or at least tried to (like with recovering the costs of the Michael Jackson memorial), but now Trutanich is proving all those who said he was no different to Weiss to be right.
So Higby, Joe B., Rumpole and others, have you got a better lesson for the Clown than Matthew 7:12?
Higby, why not my comment?
Where's the "rough & tumble" when it comes to taking it as good as you give it?
Wouldn't Jesus want all voices to be heard?
Michael,
May I ask what is the rule regarding my input on Red Spot's utterly horrendous communication skills?
In recent months, you've tolerated slander. You have for years tolerated harsh personal comments. Innuendo is a welcome guest here.
How is grammatical commentary not tolerated? I assume you find Red Spot's use of "engregious" and "eduaction" as funny as the other commenters do.
If THIS is somehow now the verboten standard, would you please give me/us the courtesy of letting us know so that we don't spend time doing something that is prohibited?
"Religion is the opiate of the masses."
- Karl Marx
"This morning, I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I'll never know."
-Groucho Marx
Using your faerie tale religion is a great way to chase away clickety clicks.
Try it.
See how well it's received.
Or do you not have the bawlz to try it? Just once a day for a month. Hell, once a day for a WEEK!
And you're telling us this because?
Oh brother, someone needs a break from blogging, and perhaps permanently.
What a lovely story!
And of course any mechanic will tell you that running the heater is greener than not running it. When you run the heater you redirect the heat the engine generates into the car. When you don't run the heater, the same heat is just vented by the radiator.
The small amount of energy consumed by the heater's fan is more than compensated by the reduced strain of running the radiator's fan.
Michael:
I appreciate your new/renewed relationship to God but please start a new blog for your philosophical meanderings. The crass folks on this blog are going to respond to it just like they respond to PJ. And rightly so. This is supposed to be the "Home of L.A. Politics" right?
3:36 AM
Hahahahaha
I love it! Are you a writer by profession?
I'm with Joe B.
Higby,
I remember the day when you actually talked about POLITICS on this blog. Unless Jesus is running for office, I think this is off-topic.
Isn't your time better spent on the ethics investigation of Dennis Zine and Veronica Becerra?
Or the parking garages?
Or the Times blindness to City Hall shenanigans?
Why is it that born agains only praise God for good things that happen? Why aren't they pissed that God caused their car heater to stopping working in the first place? Or caused their football team to lose?
A. Someone hacked the site.
or
2. Higby found God, and this site will have a LOT of repenting to do.
Years' worth.
And God said:
"Now go out and play on the freeway?"
JUST WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT! NONSENSE!
Maybe Higby needs to learn the difference between weather and climate.
Maybe this video will help break it down for him.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-F8EO3qOVk
For those of us who don't know what a parable is, can you explain what this story means, or at least its relevance to the blog?
You post on your blog, like, twice a week, and this one is a bit wanting.
Come on - where's the comments?
I've been looking forward all day to see what this post would generate.
Mayor Sam has officially jumped the holy shark.
My comment didn't get posted so let me rephrase it so it will stand a chance of getting past the censors. (I didn't use any bad words.)
Why is it that so many people are quick to praise God for things that go right, but never blame him when things go wrong, such as the heater malfunctioning in the first place, their football team losing, etc.?
By the pure definiton of God, He is responsible for all the good things and bad things ... everything.
Yeh, get that heater fixed. Heard it's going to drop to a blistering 70 degrees tomorrow in LA.
I'm out of here gang! Thanks for the memories!
Joe B.
Where can you find more fun than this place?
Your sense of humor fits right in.
9:05
Maybe your mechanic is God.
"Happy shall they be who seize your infants and dashes them against the rocks." Psalms 137:9
Wait, Joe B's not here anymore? He quit or did you fire him? I never agreed with him on politics but his activist work in town is pretty impressive. Is he just taking a break?
Whoa... Alternate universe. Tell me it's an alternate universe.
"I will sweep away everything in all your land," says the LORD. "I will sweep away both people and animals alike. Even the birds of the air and the fish in the sea will die. I will reduce the wicked to heaps of rubble, along with the rest of humanity," says the LORD. "I will crush Judah and Jerusalem with my fist and destroy every last trace of their Baal worship. I will put an end to all the idolatrous priests, so that even the memory of them will disappear. For they go up to their roofs and bow to the sun, moon, and stars. They claim to follow the LORD, but then they worship Molech, too. So now I will destroy them! And I will destroy those who used to worship me but now no longer do. They no longer ask for the LORD's guidance or seek my blessings." (Zephaniah 1:2-6 NLT)
"Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything." (Ephesians 5:22-24)
That sounds like a pretty mean God.
Does he have anger issues?
This Nice Jewish Girl just stepped in to the wrong blog! OY!
Higby, I don't know what I think about you posting some religious thought.
I do find interesting that folks can object to some mild-mannered Judeo-Christian thought yet all these commenters are fast to promote their secular humanistic religion.
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