“Christianity might be a good thing if anyone ever tried it.” George Bernard Shaw
Life is like this wealthy businessman who after many years of success retired from his bustling city life and withdrew to a small country town for some peace and quiet in his later years. He had been the owner of a classic motor vehicle outlet and he really loved his cars. So he wouldn’t miss all his much-loved vehicles he decided to take a few of his favourite models with him to use to get around in his new place of abode. The rural town that he had moved to turned out to be a delightful place, and the people there were uniformly welcoming to their new resident. He was so taken by their kindness and friendliness he ended up settling in very quickly, and ultimately came to think his latest, and hopefully last, move had been a good one.
As he got to know some of his new neighbours he gradually began to notice that many of them were quite old fashioned in their habits and hadn’t discovered many of the luxuries that people in the city, where he had previously worked, took for granted. And the closer he looked the more primitive some their ideas appeared to him. Because they had all been so helpful, kind and generous to him when he had first moved among them that he decided to investigate a little further to see if there was anything specifically he could do to help them. His wealth was substantial, and he had always felt that his great success was a privilege that he had been given rather than a right he deserved. After spending some time really getting to know some of his new friends he discovered that some of them had never owned a motor car. As mentioned he still had in his possession some of that stock from his dealership. He realized that he could never drive them all so he decided he would give away four of his much loved treasures to particular souls who had been the most helpful to him to show them how much he appreciated their kindness and friendship.
Now these cars were not just ordinary motor vehicles. They were the crème de le crème of modern technology. Their engines were turbo-charged and computer fuel injected. Their suspensions were the latest sports engineered four wheel drive types, and their safety features were second to none. They were basically Formula One racers with a car shell on them. Inside they had mp3 players, dvd machines, heated leather seats, drink coolers and every other luxury that was available. They were cars that no one in this sleepy little backwater would ever be likely to afford. As our motor trader was a humble man, he really didn’t want to change the nature of things in his new home, so he gave each of the vehicles to their new owners quietly and with a minimum of fuss, and asked them to remain quite to everyone else about their gifts.
After a few weeks he decided to see how those much loved gifts were being received by their new owners. To his surprise he found the first car he gave still parked in the garage of its owner. He knocked on the door to enquire if there was anything wrong. To his even greater surprise the new owner met him with the car’s manual in his hands. ‘Wow, this car is amazing!’ he declared. ‘On page twenty-six it says that the oil only needs to be changed every fifteen thousand kilometres. On page fifty-two there is a description of how the abs brakes work. And on page ninety-five there is an index that…’ ‘Have you spent all this time just reading the manual?’ asked the previous owner. ‘Oh yes,’ was the reply. ‘I need to know every little detail so if anybody says anything about this beautiful machine that isn’t quite correct I’ll be able to put them right.’ ‘But car ownership is all about driving not being an expert on the manual.’ replied the bemused benefactor. ‘Oh yes I know. I’ll get round to that one day, in the mean time don’t worry, no one is going to be able to say anything that will disagree with my reading of the manual.’
Disbelief filled his mind as he walked away thinking that for now one of his wonderful gifts might have been wasted. However his next experience made him really begin to question his wisdom. The owner of the second beautiful marque was sitting on a chair at the corner of one of the main intersections in the town. She was making some strange noises as she wrote down many, many notes. ‘How is the car going?’ he asked expectantly. ‘Oh it’s great,’ she replied. ‘How does it drive?’ he then asked. ‘I haven’t driven it yet. I thought it would be better to learn how everybody else drives theirs first, so I am sitting here writing down everything I can observe.’ ‘What were all the strange noises I heard?’ he asked. ‘I also want to make sure I can make all the right sounds.’ she replied. ‘I don’t want people looking at me, or listening to me and saying that I’m not doing it quite right.’ Our gift giver said rather wearily, ‘You know it doesn’t matter whether or not you do it exactly right, or just like everybody else. It doesn’t even matter what every one else thinks of how you drive. When you own a car it is all about driving it. The best way to get to know all about it is by using it the way in which it was built to be used.’ ‘Oh yes, I know that,’ she answered, ‘But I don’t want to embarrass myself so maybe I’ll try that when I think I’m ready.’
His initial feelings of bemusement were becoming more akin to exasperation as he slowly walked towards his own beautiful piece of modern engineering. ‘What’s wrong with everybody in this place?’ he thought as he decided he would ease his own bewilderment by going for a nice long cruise in the beautiful surrounding countryside. He settled into the leather seats and listened as the beautifully tuned and almost silent power house under the bonnet whirred into action. He set the climate control, cruise control, digital trip meter, put on his favourite Mozart and allowed the complete sufficiency of his perfect car transport him away from the frustration he was beginning to feel.
As he drove he saw something that made him feel a whole lot better. Up ahead, parked on the side of the road was one of the cars he had given away. ‘At last,’ he thought, ‘someone had actually taken their fantastic gift and used it for its true purpose.’ When he got closer he saw that someone was sitting in the driver’s seat so he thought he would stop and ask how it was all going. To his surprise the driver was the lady he gave it to, and she was crying. ‘What’s wrong?’ was his obvious query. ‘I’ve been driving this beautiful car around for a few days,’ she explained. ‘I was really starting to get used to it and enjoy just how good it all is, when out of the blue it just stopped and wouldn’t go anymore.’ Our retired dealer was no mechanic but he said he would have a look. After a few minutes he announced, ‘You’ve run out of petrol.’
There happened to be a garage just around the corner so he offered to help push it there. Together they managed to get it right to the bowser. ‘I don’t have any money!’she suddenly remembered. ‘Don’t worry I’ll pay for this one,’he offered as he filled the exhausted tank with its much needed energy source. He quickly paid the bill, hopped into his own car, and was heading back to his cruising in the country when he looked in the mirror and saw something that took his breath away. There was one of the cars of the decade, brand new and with a full tank of fuel, being pushed back to the road by its owner. In stunned disbelief he turned round and asked her what on earth she was doing. ‘I’d rather do things my way,’ she said. ‘Getting petrol every couple of days sounds to me like too much of a commitment. I’m not sure I’m quite ready for that. I think for the time being I would rather just try and push it on my own, and hide it away somewhere.’
He left the lady and the garage attendant pushing her hundred thousand dollar cruising machine to a nearby parking space with an extremely heavy heart. All the success he had enjoyed as a business man was now being undercut by the stupidity of the people he felt he had tried the hardest to help. Couldn’t they see the obvious ineptitude of their behaviour? Where they so blind that they couldn’t appreciate true engineering excellence when it was right in front of them. He was so distracted by his sadness that he didn’t see the last of his gifted vehicles parked outside the front of his house. As he slowly inched up the driveway he suddenly saw the owners of this last vehicle waiting on his front veranda. ‘I guess they want to give theirs back!’ he grumbled to himself.
But to his surprise, they rushed towards him with beaming smiles and obvious excitement. ‘My wife and I just want to thank you for changing our lives so dramatically. We had no appreciation of just how liberating car ownership is. And we had no idea what a fantastic piece of equipment your gift has turned out to be. It has so many features that I doubt we will ever use them all. Its luxury is so refined that there are times when we just go for a drive for the heck of it.’ ‘I’m glad it is being so useful to you,’ said the motor trader. ‘I love my cars, and there is nothing that brings me more happiness than to see them in the hands of someone who is really getting the benefit from them.’
‘Oh thank you,’ said the wife, ‘and you needn’t worry, we really plan to look after it. We read the manual so that we know for sure when and how all the servicing is to be done. It is really very simple and straight forward when you take just a little bit of effort to understand it all. We use only the best oils and fuels. I even went to the local driving school to get them to teach me some more driving skills, so I could appreciate the high levels of engineering. You know what they told me? They said that they could only teach me the very basic’s, and a superb car like that needs to experienced and enjoyed every day to truly know just how good it is. So we drive it everywhere, even on days when we feel we don’t really need too. And you know we never get sick of it. It just gets better and better. We never knew just how dull and uninteresting our lives used to be. The benefits are not just for us either. We quite often take my dear old house-bound mum to places she wants to go. She never gets out otherwise. We can now help with meals on wheels and we regularly visit friends and people who are unwell. And we owe it all to you and your fantastic gift.’
That night, as he went to sleep, the mind of our motor trader was filled with love and happiness. He no longer worried about the other three cars. The fact that his graciousness was at least being used so positively by somebody was enough for him to feel it was worth the effort.
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