Today is the Third Sunday After Trinity in the church's annoyingly inconsistent calendrical system. For others, it's the First Sunday after Wimbledon, Sunday Next Before Golf, or British Grand Prix Day.
Today a red car won. This is partly because they changed the rules yesterday to make it harder for the blue cars to win. I've only just worked out what happened to Jenson Button - I'd nodded off to sleep at that point. I was doing pretty well before that too - I did once fall asleep during the parade lap, before the race actually starts. Normally I keep awake by filing my music in alphabetical order or something similarly tedious. I can fully understand why people do knitting while watching TV. Eating, drinking, surfing, blogging, anything that doesn't take too much brainpower goes well with watching TV - which by itself is just a little too boring.
Someone was complaining about Formula 1 during a theology lecture last week. Can't remember why it came up. I think it was the environment. Which F1 is bad for. I pointed out that a few people driving cars around a circuit is irrelevant next to all the journeys made by over 100 000 people travelling there to watch. And so football is environmentally much worse than F1. Also, useful F1 technology makes it's way into production cars. They're playing with a Kinetic Energy Recovery System at the moment. Brakes are bad for the environment - I try not to use them. They destroy momentum, which you then have to replace by using more fuel. So a KER system usually charges a battery from braking energy that is otherwise wasted.
The last time we thought about buying a new car we looked at a hybrid. It was a bit too expensive though. So we ended up with same old 1.4 petrol model, but with iPod connectivity (obviously this is vitally important). Still, I hope next time we get a car, we can get one that plugs in to the mains for charging.
Might have a few days holiday later this week, and it's my tradition to buy a thoroughly unedifying car magazine to celebrate. There's a new one called iCar. It says it's about about cars that are efficient, intelligent and fun; "cars that will enhance your life without spoiling everyone else's". I look forward to reading it, possibly in a traffic jam on Friday.
There's an alternative translation of WWJD - What Would Jesus Drive? A Prius rather than a Veyron, probably. Maybe a Skoda (which my iPad amusingly changes to "Skids") - favourite of many a bishop. But first of course comes the question, WJD? When he used transport, it was a donkey rather than a magnificent warhorse that many had expected. Humility in our choice of automobile is not often our first thought. Environmental impact, insurance cost or number of cupholders tend to come first.
One of my ex-colleagues has put a picture of his mid-life crisis on Facebook - It's a Porsche convertible. I'd much rather have my reliable but slow, 5-seater Civic. But I wish I could plug it in. And I wish it was yellow. Or green or purple. But every time I drive it, I try to remember what a blessing it is to be one of the just 8% of people in the world who can afford to do so.
Zechariah 9:
9 Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion!
Shout, Daughter Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you,
righteous and victorious,
lowly and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
10 I will take away the chariots from Ephraim
and the warhorses from Jerusalem,
and the battle bow will be broken.
He will proclaim peace to the nations.
His rule will extend from sea to sea
and from the River to the ends of the earth.
Location:Silverstone. By proxy.
Jesus would drive a BMW 316 (as in Be My Witness and John 3:16).
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