They used to be everywhere. Those ubiquitous little fish on the back ends of people's cars. Usually on cars driven by individuals who took great care to show how little all of the other drivers mattered to them.
One recalls legends of early Christians, on the run from fever dreams of hungry lions and angst ridden Roman Emperors, tracing halves of the fish symbol in the dirt with their toes to signify to each other that they were, in fact, part of the faith.
And then somebody dug it up and turned it into a cute, demeaning t-shirt. And a bumper sticker. And a decal. And...
So as I'm driving to work this morning, I see an older care ahead of me with spot where obviously there had been a fish adhesived to the car at some prior point. And there was a new Pooh decal on the window.
And so the next generation takes over. Sorry 'rents, I don't need your superficial reminders of who owns the road (because, as you know, We win the game, it's in the book).
I stand in the kitchen at parties and listen to friends talk about how they grew up in Christian homes, but have either gone totally pagan, or are living an amalgamation of Christianity and paganism. Because it's easier, because it's not as hard to believe in, because it's less restrictive...
I listen to my friend talking about how Tim Burton's recent "Spooky Hollow" had obvious anti-Christian sentiment that's all over Hollywood right now, and we're in danger...
And I realize how the culture has swallowed us. The battle between the Darwin fish and "the truth" was lost long ago, methinks. We were only a fishy snack...
Or a cross on Madonna's heaving chest. Or a banner above an angry crowd at a Christian Right rally.
Who needs a saviour, when we have signs, and symbols, and pop culture identities? But then we moved with the moment...
We have forgotten, somehow. Or not passed it on. That it's not the fish, or the cross, or the banner, or the protest, that matters, that identifies us. It's not about us.
We...we are God's symbol in the world, neh? His testimony, as it were. His representative.
But hey, why get your hands dirty when a glare and a bumper sticker is so much easier? We'll just let God sort it all out...
"...and we paved over the spawning ground, and set up a kitsch market, and we smiled when we saw that it was imminently marketable...and then we moved on."