Something that you do not

Something that you do not see too often in Oakland/Berkeley/San Francisco is how Calvinist this nation is becoming. I am not talking about the heresiarch of Geneva, rather the little boy with the tiger who went to the final comics page in the sky 10 years ago or so (I think). Apparently whatever afterlife little Calvin has ended up in requires that he drink a tremendous amount of water, since he seems to be peeing on the back window of 70% of the pickup trucks I see on I-80 between here and Sacramento. Sometimes he is peeing on the Ford symbol, sometimes on the Chevy logo, other times on the Dodgers, on Osama Bin Laden, on the Democrats (he must be primarily a Republican, since I have yet to see little Calvin watering an elephant), on other comics characters, on Darwin (symbolized by the fish with legs), on mysterious unreadable symbols. On about 10% of the pickups, Calvin is kneeling before the cross in prayer. He must be giving thanks that he has finally finished peeing. It would seem that poor Calvin is in a very strange sort of Purgatory.

I also am noticing rather Baroque permutations on the Darwin vs. Christ battle. For nearly two thousand years we just had the fish. Everyone knew what it meant. It was a secret symbol for the meeting places of Christians. One would assume that it was a little more secret pre-Constantine, but you never know. Sometimes we think we are keeping a secret better than we are. Anyway, with the invention of the automobile the fish became a way of proclaiming to the world one's faith. Fine. Probably not the most effective apologetics/catechetical tool, but not heretical, and it certainly doesn't hurt anyone.

A few years back some clever person got the idea that putting legs on the fish would be a good way to indicate his faith in Darwin. I remember seeing a few cars with both the fish and the amphibious Darwin. Then the Darwin thingie appeared on its back, speared, with X's for eyes. Darwin is Dead! I guess they did not feel the need to say, "Darwin's not risen, and he ain't comin' back," but it is implied. I think that the Darwinist-sticker folks read that as declaration of war in the bumpersticker battle.

Now we have the fish eating the Darwin thingie, a hook being eaten by the fish, big fish eating little Darwins, big Darwins eating little fish, and the whole thing is getting out of hand. One could have an accident trying to decipher the action on the back of the Buick one lane over.

My request is this: please keep the debate on the origins of man to articles and books and conversations. No one is going to be convinced by depictions of some whacked foodchain on the back of your truck!

And, please pray for release of Calvin's soul from the Purgatory of a Ford on I-80 near Fairfield.