‘This people
honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.” St. Mark 7:6
When I noticed that today’s Gospel
lesson was about burdensome laws, I had to smile. Because for the last month, my life has been
dominated by one particular burdensome law—Virginia Civil Code 46.2-1177. That’s the law that requires that all Fairfax
County vehicles pass an emissions test prior to registration. Now, in principle, I think it’s a very good
law. I think we have a responsibility to
limit carbon emissions, and I want my kids to breathe clean air, and I’m sure
that auto mechanics do work that contributes to the common good. But in practice—well let’s just say I’ve made
eight trips to Sunset Hills Automotive, and we haven’t passed yet. I’m on a first name basis with everyone in
the shop.
I drive a big old car, which I
inherited from my grandfather. He always
liked a pretty car and this one was his last one and his favorite. Sometimes, when I climb into it, I can still
smell my grandmother’s perfume. I love
the leather seats and the leg room, but the car has reached a certain age, and
apparently its valves, sensors and gas cap appear to be hurtling down the “way
of all flesh.” Over at Sunset Hills,
they test it, and when it fails, they find something wrong and fix that. Then I have to drive it for fifty miles at
varying speeds to reset the monitor and first thing in the morning, they will
test it again. And the process repeats,
and the repair bills rise, and I’m left a rather less enthusiastic environmentalist
than I was when I first moved to Virginia.
All those trips back and forth to the mechanic’s, all that steam being
released from my ears—when you stack up those emissions against the ones
escaping from the minuscule gaps around the sides of my gas cap, I just wonder
how that computes.
