So there I am a couple weeks ago, innocently watching the Super Bowl, not yet aware that all my Colts hopes will be dashed, and this ad comes on—as they do, during the Super Bowl, which is one of the reasons my wife watches the Super Bowl with me. So this ad comes on, and it shows the face of a man, without any movement or visible expression, staring straight into the eye of the camera, and then another expressionless man, and then another, and as these pent-up men stare into the camera, a single man’s voice is saying:
I will get up and walk the dog at 6:30 a.m.
I will eat some fruit as part of my breakfast
I will shave
I will clean the sink after I shave
I will be at work by 8 a.m.
I will sit through two hour meetings
I will say “yes” when you want me to say “yes”
I will be quiet when you don’t want me to say “no”
I will take your call
I will listen to your opinion of my friends
I will listen to your friends’ opinions of my friends
I will be civil to your mother
I will put the seat down
I will separate the recycling
I will carry your lip balm
I will watch your vampire TV shows with you
I will take my socks off before getting into bed
I will put my underwear in the basket
and because I do this,
I will drive the car I want to drive.
Charger: Man’s Last Stand.
I laughed. I thought it was hilarious. I noticed that my wife did not laugh, not even a single “ha,” nor even a grin, but I thought it was really funny. I laughed because I felt it, I felt how boxed up all those silent men were, I thought I understood the independence they were giving up just to go along and get along in their own lives, and how they needed that fast car to make it up to themselves. I thought I understood the necessity—or the victory—of rewarding ourselves for all of our compromises and for what we give up by finding other, secret pleasures that we share with no one. By, for instance, driving the sports car we want to drive, as this ad hopes we will.
But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that all those things the ad wants me to believe I’m giving up, maybe they’re really not that much of a sacrifice, and maybe, in fact I don’t need any more reward for those concessions than than what I have already gained by those little self-denials—which is life in relationship. [Although not all the sacrifices the ad points to are little ones, and especially the question of when we speak and what we’re allowed to say—that’s a big deal in a relationship. So throw that out of the list.] But those others:
I shave, I put down the toilet seat, I throw my dirty clothes in the clothes basket because I love the family with whom I share my life. Those little irritations are not really the slow death of my soul; they are the doorway to the life I was made for. They are the doorway to the opportunity to love and be loved. They are the small acts of relationship. After all, God created us for the work and the joy of love. Whether it’s romantic love or friendship and fellowship. The very first chapters of the bible try to explain how important relationship is to us, as God and Adam discover together that only the company of another creature made from the ground can be the company that Adam was made for.
“It is not good for the groundling to be alone.” Experience, in fact, shows that human beings in isolation literally begin to lose their minds. They begin to lose the ability to organize thoughts. We need each other, we need companionship to thrive—science tells us this, and so do all our myths.
So we put the toilet seat down, we do the dishes, we change diapers, we go off to work, we erase our dry boards, we put more paper in the copier, we show up at a special program, and then come home to cut firewood and stick dinner in the oven, and then do all those things over again the next day—we do these things because we are formed for companionship and love. And the speed and handling of the car I drive really has nothing to do with it.
