A DEBATE WITH MY BUMPER STICKER

I have a thing about bumper stickers. I love to read them, and sometimes I venture too close to the car ahead in order to decipher one. They sometimes delight me, such as Send Ross!, which appeared on bumpers in the Dallas area during the Iranian hostage crisis, the reference being to Ross Perot, who is not only famous for his wealth but for his ability to spring people. And sometimes they are quietly amusing, such as God Bless John Wayne. And sometimes alarming, such as Don’t Settle for a Misconception, which rode the bumper of an apparent abortionist. Bumper stickers are sometimes a fruitful field for satire, and some ACU students back in the 1960’s were masters at it. They took aim at some of our Church of Christisms. I collected a few of them back in those days, such as:

See World’s Largest Fossil Collection — In the Big Tent at ACC Lectureship

Don’t Join - Be Added To

Attend the Church of My Choice

L. R. Wilson for Pope

The Family that Attends Worship Together Attends Worship Together

Don’t Dance - Park

Well, that was back in the rebellious 1960’s and surely those kids, now parents and nice church folk involved in the status quo, have since repented. But they came up with one sticker that is my favorite of them all, one that might well be reissued: Support Law Enforcement — Pay Your Preacher Well. What a swipe at our legalism from our confused youth starved for God’s grace!

In spite of my infatuation with bumper stickers my car has never worn one, not until now that is. I received it through the mail from a publisher and was so enamoured of it that I went straight to my Toyoto and affixed it. My first bumper sticker ever! For some weeks now I have born its message to perhaps thousands. But I am now having second thoughts, and as I continually read and reread it as I walk to my car, I find myself debating with it. I am now not so sure that I believe it myself. I might even scrape it off. But maybe not. The debate goes on.

It reads Be Happy — You Are Loved.

The message has its truth. I often recount to my 11-year old grandson those who love him. It builds security, self-worthiness, and, yes, happiness. We all need to be loved, and what a tragedy it is for one to live in this evil world without being loved, or to suppose that he is unloved. The basic message of Scripture is that God loves us, even when we are sinners he loves us. So love is a basic ingredient to happiness. My bumper sticker bears an important, meaningful message. If for no other reason we should be happy because we are loved, particularly by the one who created us.

And yet the message is misleading, and maybe seriously so. It implies that our mission in this world is to be happy. It puts it in the imperative, Be happy!, as if happiness is simply a matter of our own will. The person in the car behind me can be transformed into a happy man while he waits for the light to change! My sticker may support the happiness cult, which is deluded into believing that happiness can be the subject of another one of those “How To” books.

Happiness, if defined in terms of a joyous and meaningful life, has a way of coming indirectly. It seems to elude those who seek it as a goal. As a nation we have sought wealth, pleasure, health, success, and security, and while we have attained these to a remarkable degree they have not brought us happiness. If we are the most powerful and most hedonistic nation on earth we are also the unhappiest. We are proof that happiness does not come from things, thingification as one philosopher put it.

As odd as it may appear, the happiest people are those who are not all that conscious of being happy. They are busy serving, loving, doing, caring, and should you ask them if they are happy the answer could be, “Well, yes, I suppose so, but I don’t give it much thought.” They don’t think about themselves that much! They are not in this world to be happy but to serve and be a blessing to suffering humanity. Jesus Christ must have been the “happiest” man in the history of the world, and yet he was called “a man of sorrows.” And it is he that gives us the beatitudes, which instead of telling us how to be happy tells us who is happy, the essence of which is Blessed are those who serve.

A serious flaw with my bumper sticker is that it urges one to think about how he is loved rather than to think in terms of loving others. St. Francis’ of Assisi was right when he prayed:

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much

          Seek to be consoled as to console;

          To be understood as to understand;

          To be loved as to love.

 

Should I create a bumper sticker, a one-liner that says it all, it might be People Are God’s Language. If we desire to serve God, then let us serve people; if we love God, then let us love people; if we want fellowship with God, then let us reach out to people: if we would suffer with God, then let us suffer with people. The closer we are to people the closer we are to God. Happiness (joy and fulfillment) is the fruit of such a life. —the Editor