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with Kathleen Gibson God is not a car on a rope We heard the explosions as we drove home, the Preacher and I. Then we noticed smoke off to our left just ahead. A puff at first, it blossomed, cauliflower-like, into a plume. Grew so large it obscured the highway in front of us. Neither the Preacher nor I spoke. The cars ahead disappeared into the white without stopping. No explosions ensued, so we followed them. For a long, frightening moment, that smoke surrounded us too, as dense as cotton. �Smells like fish frying,� the Preacher said suddenly�likely more to relieve our tension than anything. But as the cloud rose, we could see what had caused it. Not a bomb, just a car. A sky blue car, with elevated rear, sleekly descending front, and a painting of a ripe canola field splashed across its sides. It sat parked, surrounded by a fire engine and bystanders. �It�s that car!� we both said at the same time. Less than two hours earlier, we�d talked to the driver, Kevin Therres, as we walked through a parking lot at the other end of town. We�d passed a collection of classic cars in town for an important drag race. Kevin�s car was one of them. We�d stopped to gape, like everyone else. He�d designed and adapted the 2007 Corvette Jet car himself, he told us. �Wanna drive?� he joked, grinning. I declined. But a girl could go places with a car�if one could call it that�designed to eat up a quarter mile (and 24 gallons of canola-derived ethanol fuel) in 6.4 seconds, blazing forward at 250 mph. Generally, the Preacher and I keep the scanty horses under our hood between fifty and a hundred kilometers per hour. No, I really didn�t want to drive. As we passed the car now, we heard another explosion and saw a long thin stream of fire spewing from a wide metal cylinder resting on its oddly constructed rear. The smoke followed�once again an innocent puff that mushroomed until it obliterated our view. When last we�d seen Kevin�s car, it was being towed by its trailer down Main Street. Kevin was sitting in the cockpit, waving at people lining the street as he passed. There�d been no cloud and no fire, just a docile, strange looking car on a rope, a chariot for its creator. Seeing that made me smile and wonder if he�d exaggerated what his car could do. Not anymore. If merely starting the engine caused enough smoke and wonder to set a city on edge, I had no doubt Kevin�s creation could accomplish everything he said it could. It made me wish God would do that every now and then. Show off a little. Sit in the chariot of his creation; start his engines and make a little smoke and fire�just to prove his power to those who doubt him. Or those like me, who need reminding sometimes, that through Jesus Christ, he is able to deliver everything he�s ever promised. �2008, Kathleen Gibson Respond Home |
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