My car has over 111,000 miles on it. It passed ten years old at the end of April, from the day I took delivery, unless you count from the day it rolled off the assembly line, which was earlier – Holy Thursday that year, in fact. A happy coincidence for a priest’s car. It was perfect, as cars are when new, and it was good at its car-job. Now, it is no longer perfect. There are some mechanical issues and some electrical issues and there are some bodywork scars from rather more than average wear-and-tear. But it is still quite good at its car-job, and I am happy with it.
It cannot be replaced, alas, not with a new model just like it. No longer is a manual transmission available to those of us who enjoy more involvement with the operation of the vehicle. Plus, all the new models have no gauges – they have screens that resemble gauges. I don’t know about you, but I am weary of electronic substitutes and semblances of things that are good and useful. I like things to be things. A car is a thing made up of many things that all have purpose toward the functioning of the car. Our material reality depends on things to do the things we need to do, and staying in touch with that thingyness is a reminder of our reality and our limitations. This isn’t Star Trek, we don’t have a teleporter, and the things we count on to move us about have the benefits and the limitations of material reality. Inertia is real, and good brakes a necessity.
Carefully maintained though it is, my car is wearing out, and certain of its things are not functioning as they should. I must be a little more careful in my sequences and my techniques to coax from it the performance I enjoy and expect. By no means unreliable, and certainly not dangerous, my car reveals more often its limitations and places on me more of the responsibility for success. But I claim to enjoy more involvement with the operation of the vehicle and cannot make this a complaint.
Every time I climb into my car and start the engine, I expect it to do everything it has always done. This may not be rational, especially since I clearly pay attention to all of its limitations. But it is necessary, or else I would not be able to do the things I need to do. I maintain the awareness that I have to make certain adjustments, and then I try to be grateful every time I get away with it, arrive on time, and return intact.
This is a process we all manage with our cars in their various states of reliability and repair. But is it not also what we do with all the other things we count on daily for their function? We give no thought at all to our refrigerator until the milk is warm or the ice cream runny; we barely listen to the air conditioner unless repeated prodding of the thermostat fail to achieve our desired comfort. Let them but fail at their purpose and there is no question more burning in our day than whether they need repair or replacement and how fast we can get it done.
Is this not also true of the material aspect of ourselves? We give little thought to our eyes or our feet, our hearts or hands, until some failure leave us flailing to do what we always did easily before. That they are material, and that we ourselves are material to be maintained and managed is a startling revelation. Then we become accustomed to the added cumber of eyeglasses or orthopedic inserts, or heaven forfend, a stent. But our corporeal materiality is as fragile and frangible as any other.
Sometimes people joke about the wear and tear of life that it isn’t the years, it’s the miles. I think it is both, like cars that need to track their running time and not only their mileage, such as police cars and taxicabs. The informed eye keeps tabs on the fluids and learns how to massage the best performance possible out of the old beast even if some of the systems are squishy and some of the connections loose. Adjustments are made to technique as well as expectations of performance, so that the driver can keep the impression that he is in charge even as he yields to the increasing demands of the vehicle.
These are the realities of the effects of time and use on every material reality, even our most vital ones. We assume at one level of thought that they will continue to run forever, while understanding in a less conscious way that is not an option. We also know it cannot be replaced with a new model just like it.
Monsignor Smith
