For a long time I was going to write a blog post called In Praise of Ugly Cars. It was going to be about buying ugly cars on purpose, something we used to do out of necessity and now do voluntarily. Just now I'm keenly aware of the drawbacks of ugly cars, though.
Consumer culture says, "What is the most house (or car) that I can afford?" Voluntary poverty says, "What is the smallest house (or ugliest car) that will meet my needs?" (We are lucky here in Gladlyville to have reasonably priced housing options, so please don't feel this post is aimed at you if you are feeling squeezed by a big-city mortgage.) I had never encountered the idea of voluntary poverty before I became Catholic, but it struck an immediate chord with me. Let me hasten to say it is a practice I engage in only selectively. Dorothy Day would doubtless look askance at our restaurant budget. But I think big-ticket purchases, and especially cars, are a sensible place to think about voluntary poverty. Our strategy has always been to purchase an older no-frills car, often one with some minor cosmetic blemishes.
A few years back I dropped off a kid for a Scout campout, and the volunteer collecting health forms needed to write something on the paper I handed her. She laid it on the trunk of the closest car, on top of a stack of papers, and added a quick note. The car's owner came swooping down on us, furious. It was his prize possession, a Mercedes convertible, and he was incensed that she had used a ballpoint pen on top of his expensive paint job -- even with a pile of 10 papers in between. He whipped out a cleaning cloth and wiped fretfully at the (wholly unremarkable) spot. I thought to myself, "If ever I get that focused on the appearance of an object I own, I should probably throw it into the sea." I can't predict how I would respond to the prospect of damaged paint on a car worth more than the median US income, but I hope I would still be courteous to the well-intentioned person in front of me -- the person whose years of volunteer service to the Scout troop made it possible for my kid to attend camp.
I am typing this post and thinking it's practically a cosmic invitation for me to discover what I would do in a parallel circumstance. Maybe tomorrow the babysitter will overturn a glass of tomato juice on the piano keyboard or something. I would be unhappy about that (although I hope I would still be polite). But that's why I don't keep my piano on the front porch. The thing about cars is that they are uniquely vulnerable to depredations at the hands (or bumpers) of others. All it takes is a moment of absent-mindedness or bad judgment -- one inattentive driver out of the thousands of drivers who will operate their vehicle near mine across its lifespan.
It's easier to cultivate detachment from material things if your car is pre-uglified. If a teenaged driver has an accident in a pre-uglified car, it's likely to be less conspicuous, which makes it easier to say sincerely, "I'm just glad you're okay." It's easier to give generously if you're not working around a hefty car payment. All sensible observations, right?
This has been an expensive year for car repairs, though. Within the past week we've put $1800 into our newer vehicle. Elwood and I have been debating automotive end-of-life issues again. Across all 26 years of our marriage, I've always been the one saying "DNR the car!" while he says, "No, I really think we can nurse her through this crisis." It always works out. In this particular conversation I have been feeling the influence of some wealthy friends, who arrange their budget so they pretty much never have to deal with car repairs. But I've also been thinking tonight about Dorothy Day, and specifically about this quote from a blog post by a woman who interned at a Catholic Worker house: "Dorothy Day writes that though we may attempt poverty, a kind of stripping of ourselves, 'still you will reach out like an octopus to seek your own comfort, your untroubled time, your ease, your refreshment' (Loaves and Fishes, 84)."
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