What is hanging from your rearview?

Do you have anything hanging from your rear view mirror? It is sort of trendy and kind of neat to decorate your car with something that is personal. As for me, I used to have two things hanging from my rear view. The first was a blue ring. It was given to me by a unit leader of AmeriCorps NCCC. There was a small paper that came with it, that said what it signified. Since I was in the blue unit, the ring was blue. Simple. The ring however, with its continuous shape, represented more. It represented the interconnectedness of us all. It means that no matter how much you think you can focus on yourself and the rest of the world will fall into place, this simply is not true. It further went on to represent my inability to separate myself from a life of service. Partly this is true because as a Christian, Christ has called me to a life of service. Also this is true though, because after spending a year in NCCC and a year as a VISTA, I can no longer claim I do not know about the need. I cannot just lay in my warm bed with a full stomach thinking the rest of the world is doing the same. I cannot day dream about driving a Maserati that I want to own without first thinking about how many hungry kids in Africa that amount of money would feed.



The 2nd thing I used to have on my rear view was a circular, mini-coin type thing with a dove cutout in the middle. It was given to me at Habitat. I don't remember the paper for it either, but it was something to the effect that the dove represented Christ, and I was to always remember the love that Christ showed for me.



I put both of these on a piece of hemp and hung them from my rear view. This was meant to remind me. It sort of did... but it didn't also. It was detached. I looked at it when I got in my car. "Oh yeah, I forgot, I should be living like this." And then I left it there when I got out of my car.



About a month ago (maybe), I started wearing it around my neck. It is no longer detached. It has now become a part of me. I cannot seem to get a nice, cushy engineering job that will let me buy that Maserati. I do see many, many opportunities to live out the principles embodied by these two pieces of insignificant metal. And I think about them, whether or not I am in my car.



What is hanging from your rear view mirror? What is hanging around your neck?