Now that I'm living and working in the same neighborhood, I'm excited about my gas bill lowering. One friend who made almost the exact same geographical job change as I reported that she filled up her car once a month. Hallelujah! So this week, when I realized that I was filling up my car on Sunday, after having filled it up the previous Tuesday, I began to think about where all that gas went. This thinking aloud occurred in my car with my husband present. As I counted where I had been the past 6 days, my husband had a quick answer that had nothing to do with where I had been: I did not know how to effectively drive a manual transmission. I had a quick reply: Any person who gets stuck on 114 for 1.5 hours because the road is flooded out (and TxDOT did not have the forethought to have officers directing traffic through the intersection light that the entire freeway had to go through to be diverted from the water) after lovingly dropping their spouse at the airport this past Thursday would naturally use a lot of gas in all of that start and stop traffic.
That's when Troy gave me a lesson on how engines work. Now I have a new quest: using second gear as the starting gear (skipping first) and then trying to keep my engine below the 2 RPM mark. Supposedly I will see better gas mileage. I remembered my quest yesterday morning driving to work but totally forgot about it on the way home so I probably had some 3, 4 and 5 RPM going on. If Troy's mechanical theory is true, and if I really am not maximizing my gasoline with my driving, then it's as if I'm driving down the road pitching the gasoline out of my car like a person would do with a bucket on a boat that is sinking on the ocean. The price of oil has hit the psychological mark of $70 so my economic forecast is that the price at the pump is going to continue to rise. Learning to maximize my gas mileage would go a long way towards safeguarding against my costs for gasoline, and yet, it's probably not just about me in this world so it's good to conserve gas because deep down we all know burning all this fuel just can't be good for our world. If oil is the decayed matter of extinct dinosaurs who have gone before us, we would do well to listen to their bones that are probably eager to remind us that nothing lasts forever, no matter how much we may think that God is on our side. We might just be the source of fossil fuel for someone else someday. So then it must be good here and now to consider if I am driving my own life in such a way that I am maximizing my mileage. Or, am I driving through life so unaware that I have no idea that what I'm actually doing is just pitching gasoline overboard not even realizing the precious commodity that is my strength and my hope and my center. Another way to ask this, Am I working for meaning? or Just meaning to work? I'm writing this post early Tuesday morning and as I got out of bed, I heard a whisper, "See ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness...and ALL these things shall be added unto you..." God help all of us as we seek the kingdom first.
That's when Troy gave me a lesson on how engines work. Now I have a new quest: using second gear as the starting gear (skipping first) and then trying to keep my engine below the 2 RPM mark. Supposedly I will see better gas mileage. I remembered my quest yesterday morning driving to work but totally forgot about it on the way home so I probably had some 3, 4 and 5 RPM going on. If Troy's mechanical theory is true, and if I really am not maximizing my gasoline with my driving, then it's as if I'm driving down the road pitching the gasoline out of my car like a person would do with a bucket on a boat that is sinking on the ocean. The price of oil has hit the psychological mark of $70 so my economic forecast is that the price at the pump is going to continue to rise. Learning to maximize my gas mileage would go a long way towards safeguarding against my costs for gasoline, and yet, it's probably not just about me in this world so it's good to conserve gas because deep down we all know burning all this fuel just can't be good for our world. If oil is the decayed matter of extinct dinosaurs who have gone before us, we would do well to listen to their bones that are probably eager to remind us that nothing lasts forever, no matter how much we may think that God is on our side. We might just be the source of fossil fuel for someone else someday. So then it must be good here and now to consider if I am driving my own life in such a way that I am maximizing my mileage. Or, am I driving through life so unaware that I have no idea that what I'm actually doing is just pitching gasoline overboard not even realizing the precious commodity that is my strength and my hope and my center. Another way to ask this, Am I working for meaning? or Just meaning to work? I'm writing this post early Tuesday morning and as I got out of bed, I heard a whisper, "See ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness...and ALL these things shall be added unto you..." God help all of us as we seek the kingdom first.
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