There’s no way this makes sense…

I was driving home from the office yesterday and noticed a unique decal on the back of a truck’s window diagonally in front of me.

I could tell it was supposed to spell out something because one of the letters looked like a “V,” . . . but from my vantage point, I was having great difficulty figuring out what the other letters meant.

At some point, I could recognize a grenade and figured out that it was an “O.”

Then, context clues helped.

It came to me . . .

LOVE.

Hmmmmm . . . .

Love is spelled out with assault devices.

I guess I got hung up on the “V” because I couldn’t figure out what it was.

I finally resorted to Google.

LOVE spelled out with assault rifle.

LOVE is spelled out with a handgun.

LOVE is spelled out with a grenade.

I feel like maybe the FBI has a tap on my phone because of the bizarre things I google.

Anyway . . . .

It’s a real thing. In fact, there’s a lot of commercial merchandise around this entire idea. If you are curious, check out ETSY . . .

You can even buy the vector file for $55.

Tom and I had just gotten off the phone, but I couldn’t let this go.

“You aren’t going to believe what I just saw . . . now I really have seen it all. LOVE spelled out using guns and a grenade on the back of someone’s truck. There’s no way that could possibly represent LOVE.

Regardless of how you look at it.”

Consumed with my self-righteous thinking, I drove home.

“Who would put LOVE on their vehicle with guns, etc.? This will be my focus for the e-news.

Yeah!

And . . . oh yeah, hey, the family that left West because I don’t take a strong enough stance on social justice issues . . . check this out now! I do take a stand . . . so there.”

(Those were my thoughts on the drive.)

Then I started thinking about worship for West on Sunday. We will finish our series on “Would you date you?” and I thought of my small group readings from the week.

You’ve heard me reference Richard Rohr tons. He truly is one of the most brilliant theologians of today’s age and explains holy scripture, faith, religion, etc., in a way that makes sense. And he looks like Jesus!

“At a certain stage in our spiritual journey, we begin to see ourselves in humiliating ways. You’ll see your phony motivations; You are not as holy as you think; you and your actions are largely preoccupied with your self-image; you think of yourself as moral, aware, and enlightened. When you face the fact that you are not actually all that enlightened, moral, or holy, that you can’t project evil onto other religions, races, classes, political parties, or genders, your struggle and humiliation can lead you to real non-dual thinking.”

Then my thoughts became . . .

“Rohr says, ‘You are not as holy as you think you are . . .

You think of yourself as moral, aware, and enlightened . . . ‘

So, Andrea, maybe you shouldn’t pass judgment on someone’s decal .”

While it isn’t anything I would have on the back of my car, there are ways to understand “why,” . . . but at the end of the day, it doesn’t concern me. Faith-based thinking does not mean judgmental thinking. Thus, who am I to judge?

A new lesson for me . . . and maybe one we can all glean something from.

Until Sunday . . .