Two Cheers for the Check-Engine Light
And an answer to the question "Daddy, is that a monster?"
In your anger do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry.
Ephesians 4:26
[King David] covered his face and cried aloud, “O my son Absalom! O Absalom, my son, my son!” Then Joab went into the house to the king and said, “Today you have humiliated all your men, who have just saved your life and the lives of your sons and daughters…Now go out and encourage your men.”
2 Samuel 19:4-7
When I bought my Acura I just needed a car that would get me around town and back and forth at work. I also needed a car I could afford. Oh, and if possible, it would be nice if it were in good working order.
Nobody who knows me would accuse me of being a “car guy.” Sure, I insure cars for a living, so I have a superficial familiarity with the makes and models that are out there, which ones are expensive to insure, which ones are likely to qualify for classic or collectible insurance. But open a hood and point to a part and I’m unlikely to be able to name the thing you are pointing at. And anyway, at this point in my life I was a student and had no more idea of going into insurance than I had of going to the moon.
So when I bought my Acura I bought it knowing that the dash was bright like a Christmas tree from all the lights: the check engine light, the oil light, and, you know, all those other lights. Just bad sensors, the guy who sold it to me said. Even if he was wrong, the price was right, so I took it. Early mornings when I drove it down the icy streets to clean windows before the breakfast rush at Perkins’ 24 hour restaurant, the bright green and gold and blue lights kept me company before the sun came up.
My daughter is afraid of monsters. We have a picture book, I think it’s called Monster Mingle that she used to really enjoy. She doesn’t read it any more. And any time there’s a noise, or a shape, or just anything that she doesn’t like, she says “Dad, is it a monster?” Her eyes are wide with fear, and her heart goes thump thump and she looks to me for consolation. All the assurances in the world can’t prevent another monster from looming in her imagination tomorrow. And when it does, her heart will fill with anxiety just like it did today.
Later in life we got a better car, a lime-green Toyota Camry hybrid that we decided we wanted to treat a little better than the beaters we’d owned in the past. One day, the check engine light popped on, so I took it in so those in the know could check out the check engine light and let me know what it meant and how much it would cost me to resolve the issue. In my ignorance, I thought that the “check engine” light meant there was something wrong with, you know, the engine. Turns out the only problem was that I hadn’t turned the gas cap far enough for it to go “click click click.”
I bear a grudge against check “engine” lights, now.
What is the role of the emotions in life?
Some suggest they are nothing more than window dressing. If you have them, fine. If not, just as well. The window in the wall performs its function equally well whether there’s a curtain around it or not. Emotions are like that, just an extra, a cherry on top, nice to have, but certainly not essential.
Others see emotions as the weathervane that sets the sailing directions on the journey of life. How should I behave? What choice should I make? Where should I go, what should I do, who should I marry? Hold on while I stick a pinky in my mouth and hold my finger up to feel which way the wind of my emotions is blowing, for that is the way I will be going.
Rather than being unnecessary window dressing or essential navigation directions, I think emotions are like lights on the dash. They alert you to problems, they make you aware of realities that otherwise would have slipped by unnoticed. Sometimes. Other times they alert you to problems that turn out not to be problems. Still other times they alert you to problems that are different problems than the problems you thought they were alerting you to.
I suppose that when Adam and Eve were first walking on the soft grass of eden, holding hand to hand with the one they loved first and most (and only), drinking in the beauty of the emperor-by-day sun and the glory of the ruler-by-night moon, surveying the sprinkling of stars that shrouded the darkened sky, I suppose that their emotions aligned pretty perfectly with the reality of the situation. “This is good, this is true, this is real, and beautiful, and worthy,” whispered their hearts, and there were no false notes in those whispers. Not until a tempter came along to turn them aside.
But now, in the age of the tempter and his companions - the flesh and the world - the signals are often crossed. Anger rages not at true injustice but at a perceived slight. Fear is felt not for the one who judges all things but for the judgment of a mortal man. Hearts pulse with attraction not for a beloved spouse but for one who is forbidden to us: disordered desires, wrongly begun, wrongly pursued, wrongly directed.
The mind, the body, and the emotions are all shadows of their former selves and caricatures of their future selves. But the mind is still essential, the body is still good, the emotions still to be celebrated, and cultivated, and directed, and treasured.
Don’t believe everything your emotions tell you.
But don’t ignore them, either.
I drove that Acura for three surprisingly incident free years before graduation and the long trip back to California. Not wanting to risk my “as-is” purchase on a 2,000 mile trip, I sold the car to another student, a man more cautious than I, who had a mechanic check the lights and report on his findings. Shockingly, none of the issues raised were serious. Some were as benign as an unscrewed gas cap.
“Daddy, is that a monster?”
“No Baby, it’s not. Monsters aren’t real.”
Someday my daughter’s sense of reality and her emotional sensors will be more closely aligned. Someday her fear will flair when a bear is snuffling outside the tent, but she will sleep soundly when nothing more than a breeze blows through the tree-tops.
Someday my own emotions will alert me on-time, only at the right time, all the time. Someday, that is, someday after the day of the Lord, and not before.
Until then, two cheers for the check-engine light.