“The Spirituality of Bumper Stickers”
When planning services for this summer, the Music and Worship Committee wanted some sort of theme to tie the services together. We discussed the fact that while most people travel at least a short distance in the summer , Unitarian Universalists tend to blow everyone else out of the water—we REALLY travel. In fact, I wonder which parts of the globe this congregation hasn’t been to? With this knowledge, we settled on the theme, “The spirituality of travel”. It was our thought, and indeed we knew from past experience with other members of this church, that as UUs go out into the world, we might not only visit a place, but truly experience it. So far this summer, I haven’t been disappointed (well, maybe I was frustrated with the failure of technology)—the talks by Michele Tomarelli and Bill Graziano on their visits to Greece and were not only stimulating, but spellbinding. And there are more travel services to come, so make sure you clear your Sunday morning calendars!Before I get into my talk too far, I think it best to give you some history in regards to my topic. A little history of the bumper sticker. Now, I know there are some fact nerds and librarians in the audience, so I will cite my source, which is that most reliable of websites, Wikipedia! Since bumper stickers could not pre-date actual bumpers, and the first bumper appeared on the Ford Model A of 1927, it’s safe to say that there were no bumper stickers prior to that. However, the first political window decal, for Warren G. Harding, appeared in 1920. It’s believed that the first bumper stickers appeared shortly before World War II—they were flag-like, and were attached to the bumpers by wires. Forest P. Gill, a silkscreen printer from Kansas City, introduced the first adhesive bumper sticker, and the rest is history. I don’t remember the first sticker I ever saw, but today I’m an avid reader of bumpers whenever traffic flow permits. The variety and cleverness of them amaze me, whether I agree with them or not.
I admit, I’m one of those not traveling too far this summer—my kids were the ones with wanderlust, and have been to Germany, the Czech Republic, and Greece—but I’ve been content with an overnight visit to Saugatuck, Michigan, and a couple of day trips to Chicago. However, and this gets to the heart of my talk today—you don’t have to travel far to experience that all-American phenomenon—the Bumper Sticker! I say it’s not an all American phenomenon, because you can find them in many countries; in Israel there’s even a song made up completely of bumper sticker sayings. There’s just something brilliant and for the most part, thought-provoking about those succinct phrases that you have to stare at on the back of the vehicle in front of you. At that moment, a connection is made between you and the other driver whether you want it or not. You may laugh, you may wish you could back your car up, or you may even be inspired to do hand gestures in the hopes that they will see you in their rearview mirror. But connections are made all the same.
I guess you don’t actually need to see another car; you could just walk around the back of your own vehicle and see the most inspired saying you will encounter all day—mine just happens to be a cautionary, “Buckle up. It makes it harder for the aliens to suck you out of your car.” Humor with a message—that’s what I go for. I, like most of you, don’t even have to drive or walk far to see the next message of the day. My neighbor’s bumper sports the sticker, “Somewhere in Texas, a village is missing its idiot.” Just by simply driving by and reading, I have made a connection with folks I haven’t yet met, and I pretty much know whether I would even want to try to form a relationship with them, beyond an occasional “hello”. Any drive around town will give you the opportunity to see lots of bumper stickers, but after you pass your neighbors’ house, the next time you really might have an opportunity to think and speculate about possible relationships with other car owners is in the parking lot of work or school. If you see someone drive in to a space near your car, and they have a bumper sticker which reads, “Support faith-based missile defense systems,” you know pretty quickly two things: 1) they enjoy wordplay, and 2) you may or may not be able to carry on a civilized conversation that will be mutually satisfying. The same goes for a car that drives in with this pasted on: “You know your god is man-made when he hates the same people you do.” However, the three of you all might be able to laugh with the person whose bumper reads, “In the event of the rapture, can I have your car?” But perhaps the most important place to form opinions based solely on bumper art is at church. One of our former members, Tina Darwin, spoke quite eloquently on just this subject during her spiritual journey a few years ago. She said that she and her husband, Mike, would drive through the parking lots of local churches, reading bumper stickers. For them, it was their only real way of discovering whether they wanted to take the scary, big step of walking through the doors of the church and attending the service. On the Sunday they chose to visit our church, they drove to the library lot with great expectation—only to find that we were having an all-church picnic, and the service that Sunday was being held in Happy Hollow Park. However, they came back the next Sunday, and I’m not sure what bumper they read that did it, they decided they had discovered their new church home. I didn’t realize this was going to become a cautionary tale, but here it is---choose your bumper stickers with great care—our church may be depending on you! I believe Tina mentioned she saw stickers in support of Planned Parenthood and recycling, but drive through our parking lot now and you will see much more than that. There are soccer stickers, football decals, rainbow flags, and any number of bumpers displaying the name of a political candidate. Our beliefs, as displayed on our bumpers, are rich and varied, and yet we do embrace, even on an adhesive strip, the words of our covenant—“Love is the Spirit of this Church”. That’s one of the things I love about our church--our beliefs run the full spectrum, and yet we are able to honor one another, and our beliefs are not divisive. Here are some bumper stickers that we could easily find on our cars, all in the same lot on the same day:
For the atheists among us: “I don’t need to be threatened with Hell to be moral.”
For the agnostic: “Apathetic agnostic: don’t know and don’t care”
For the humanist: “What we really need is a moment of science in the public schools.”
For the pagan: “Sure you can pray for me, and I’ll dance naked in the forest for you.”
For the Christian: “Jesus was a big-hearted liberal.”
For the Jew: “You had me at Shalom”
For the Buddhist: “Namaste’”
And for those of us who just want to brighten someone’s day: “Don’t think God has a sense of humor? Look at the platypus.”
There are uniquely Unitarian Universalist bumper stickers, and it’s striking to note that they poke fun at us, not others. You can have the simple, and yet conversation-starting: “I’m a UU are U?”, or the more straightforward: “Unitarian Universalists—we promise to question all your answers.” A variation on this theme is: “Unitarian Universalism—where all your answers are questioned.” And finally, “Unitarian Universalists tend to need some more words than other people.” After the service, I encourage you to perhaps design your own UU bumper sticker.
Recently I read the book, Letter to a Christian Nation, by Sam Harris. In the book, he reflected on the most glaring inconsistency of the Christian faith: the many denominations of Christians, who call themselves Christian, and yet who are at odds with each other—in fact, many hate each other, which is in direct violation of the main tenet of Christianity, “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” When I see the bumper sticker, “Catholics are Christians too”, it brings Harris’ message right back to me. And if all Christians are supposedly the same, why is this bumper sticker necessary: “Catholics were the first Christians”? The more conservative of Christians might give voice to their beliefs on their cars in some of the following ways: “The 10 commandments are not multiple choice.” “Blessed by Jesus, spoiled by my husband.” And, “Christian Chick. Seeing the sticker “One nation, under God. Get over it!” exemplified what I found was the most interesting fact about the majority of conservative Christian car art I read--they presume to speak for all Christians. I believe it is precisely this attitude that raises the ire of more liberal Christians, and it’s clearly reflected in the bumper stickers they produce. In my research, I discovered the Episcopal Church, in particular, is facing conservative Christians head-on, with bumper stickers like: “Challenging fundamentalism since 1789”. “The Episcopal Church welcomes everybody. Do you?” Or, “The Episcopal Church—because your mind is a terrible thing to leave behind.” It’s also clear that many liberal Christians are trying to separate themselves from conservatives in the political arena as well—I don’t know how many times I’ve seen the sticker, “I’m for separation of church and hate.”, but this one is new for me: “When did Jesus become pro-rich, pro-war, and only pro-American?” Perhaps the bumper sticker, quoting Jimmy Carter, expresses the liberal Christian sentiment the best: “Evangelical Christianity has been hijacked by people who would give Jesus himself the boot if he knocked at their door.” The divisiveness that Harris speaks about isn’t limited to liberal vs. conservative Christians, or between various denominations--it occurs within Christian denominations too: the Episcopals have this bumper sticker on offer: “Mean Anglicans suck”. I had to ask a friend to explain it to me, and she described a rift in the Episcopal Church, having to do with the conservative vs. liberal theology within their own denomination. But it’s not just the Episcopal church--I had to pause to reflect on these bumper stickers I came across: “Catholic and liberal”, and “Conservative Catholic voter”. Not to paint UUs with a perfect brush, but I don’t think we would find it necessary to identify ourselves as conservative or liberal UUs, and I think we would be appalled by any UU who would suggest that they were a UU voter-—after all, we would ask, isn’t every adult UU a voter?!
A couple of weeks ago, Bill Graziano spoke about his travels in Turkey, and the in-group/out-group mentality. In short, where there is an in-group, a group who feel they hold the power, there is by necessity an out-group, a group of people who feel excluded, which can lead in the extreme to feelings of hatred and violence. I wish he had had the opportunity to expand on his work in this area, because I found it so interesting. And I must say I found ample evidence of his hypothesis as I was doing research for this talk. I believe that Conservative Christians, some of whom have said THEY feel persecuted by our society, are the most guilty of spreading this in-group/out-group mentality in the first place. I didn’t have to look far to find that message made quite clear, and it’s not even on a bumper sticker—it’s on an Indiana government-sponsored license plate. You know what I’m talking about—those blue license plates that are sprouting up all over, which bear the words, “In God We Trust”. The first time I saw that plate, I was shocked—shocked! That a state could be so foolish as to actively sponsor and promote a religion. My horror intensified when I realized it was a state of Indiana license plate, and I had never heard that such a plate was even going to be made available. How DID this happen? I am a political nerd, and read not one word about the law that passed which made these license plates legal. Certainly the state did not hear the words of Prof. Graziano, because probably what for most lawmakers was an innocent declaration of faith has become a blatant creation of an in-group and an out-group, with the out-group feeling at the very least annoyed, and at the most, hurt and angry. Do they not know that their God is not everyone’s God...or do they know this all too well? They certainly didn’t consult a member of our congregation, who in an opinions page column suggested adding, “In Allah we Trust”, “In Buddha we Trust”, “In the Goddess we Trust,”and even “In Nothing we Trust”, just to allow others to feel their religious beliefs were included and honored by the BMV. However, the state is also providing a public service--what for some is an expression of faith has for me become a red flag—I know, with 90% certainty, that the driver of a car bearing that plate will do something discourteous or even dangerous, so I give them ample space. In addition, I have recently read two newspaper counts of sexually predatory behavior by men, and each was identified by their “In God We Trust” license plate. Actually, I feel sad that it’s come to this—-that a group in our society feels the need to ask the state government to violate the separation of church and state so they can feel better about themselves as they drive around town. Yes, I feel sad, but not surprised, because I’ve seen the other ways they choose to create their “us vs. them”, in-group/out-group mentality. I have seen the innocent, “God Bless America”, and the Christian fish symbol, but I’ve also seen the defensive, “Not just an American, but also a Christian”, complete with a fish outline and an American flag. I’ve also seen one that just plain scares me—the words, “Lord’s Army” super-imposed over a camouflage fish. And this group felt insulted when someone designed the fish with legs, or the shark-eating-the-fish decals? Those are gentle backlashes compared to the more demonstrative, “It’s your Hell—YOU burn in it!” I did feel alienated when I saw the sticker, “Jesus is the reason for the season,” and I guess others felt the same, because there is now a sticker, far more historically accurate, that reads, “The Solstice is the reason for the Season”. And I’ve got to say that the words “Honor thy Mother” printed beside a photo of the earth from space makes me feel a whole lot better than the words, “One planet, under God,” printed next to the same photo. Why is it that some, when expressing their spirituality via their bumper, feel compelled to lengthen the divide between people? Is it insecurity that drives this, or is it confidence in their power as the in-group? Why is it that when I see, “My savior died for your honor student,” I want to yell, not laugh? Maybe it’s because I, as member of the out-group, feel threatened? I don’t feel the need to tell the world what MY religion is doing for THEM, but I also know that if I put a sticker, even as gentle as “How does my love inspire your hate?” on my car, I would in all likelihood face a violent confrontation, as blatant as words and angry faces to as hidden as scratches on my car. This knowledge reinforces, in a very strong way, my feeling of being an outsider. Thank goodness there members of the in-group who are conscious of the fact that they have been given the power, yes, but the power to heal. They are truly the silent majority, so you won’t necessarily see their sentiments plastered all over the back end of their vehicle. But I know every time I see, the words “God bless everyone. No exceptions.” I feel hope for all of us.
In closing, I leave you with this thought, “Choose your words carefully, for someday you might have to eat them.”
