Signs Signs

Most of the time when I sit down with a blank screen to write these musings I have no idea  of what to write. So I end up writing a couple of paragraphs of gibberish until my mind clears itself of hectic life related topics and I can embark on one theme or another that was vaguely expressed in the original mishmash. Not so this week. This topic hit me upside the head on Monday and I have been mulling it over all week long. As always if you like it, pass it on to your friends by posting it to your facebook status.

Bev and I were driving along last Monday after dropping off the car for an oil change on the way to a movie. True Grit for me. The King’s Tongue for her. Or was that the King’s Speech? Whatever. I was sharing that I had a few minutes to watch the morning talk on the T.V. in the lobby of the shop and the talking heads were going on and on about Ricky Gervais and the Golden Globes. They did not care that he was mean to nearly everyone, but that at the end he said “I want to thank God for making me an atheist.” They seemed to be surprised. They had no recollection that he made a movie about the same theme, “The invention of lying” which I thought was hilarious and expressed some truths about how we see God, but was, in the end, a vehicle for his beliefs about God.

I only bring that up because a few minutes later, we were listening to the Christian radio news hour and they featured a man who believes that Christians should have hand signals so that we can flash our beliefs across crowded rooms and those in the know will be able to flash us back, like a bunch of Jesus Gangstas. I quote from the Florida Baptist Witness: “It’s just the idea that First Baptist Church of Panama City member Mark Mitchum created after recognizing the lack of a clearly defined, unmistakable hand gesture for Christians.”  You can imagine my surprise. I thought I knew the omni-present and omni-potent but I found that I was lacking. My life is complete now.

It appears that Mr. Mitchum came up with extending the three middle fingers (this is called throwing three). This hand gesture is for the trinity. Now according to Mr. Mitchum, he did his research and other than the obvious three fingers meaning the number 3, three fingers had no other universal meaning.

Not to belittle Mr. Mitchum’s reference encyclopedia, but I can think of several other meanings no less universal. There are losers who express that they won the consolation game. It is what the bronze medal winner holds up in the Olympics. Boy Scouts hold up three fingers to say Be Prepared. The less savory of us held up three fingers and said “read between the lines” in defiant rebellion against the school authorities who said the flipping people off was inappropriate and punishable.

That was without the internet. With the internet, I found that if you aren’t careful “throwing three” will get you on the wrong side of a Crypt or a Blood in

East LA.

And most sobering, you throw three in Serbia and you will be telling your Nazi brothers that you are down for the struggle. Look it up.

But as I pondered the imponderable, it suddenly dawned on me that I have a deep personal stake in this latest of sign of the times. What happens if God recognizes this as a sign of one’s faith, a litmus test to heaven so to speak? While I will gladly convert if such signs of devotion are called for, what will my father, Lloyd, who died 20 years ago do? He who went to the after life as an amputee  of these now crucial fingers, could be in serious trouble. I can just see him now walking up to the pearly gates and St. Peter saying “Next,…  Show us the sign.”

“What sign?”

“You haven’t heard. New policy; to get in you have to throw three.”

“Throw three?”

“yes, hold up your three middle fingers on your left hand and we will let you in. Very easy. Very straight forward. No muss no fuss.”

“Slight problem St Peter. I don’t have three middle fingers on my left hand.”

“What are you some kind of trouble maker?”

“Well, no. Actually, I was just a busy farmer who was in a hurry one day and got my hand caught in some machinery”

“Really? Three Fingers Left Hand?

“Yes.”

“Hmmmmm? All gone?

“Yes”

“Next.”

And what about all of us 1970’s Christians who thought the fish was the sign that all the good Christians put on their bumpers to declare their ichthyology or was that eschatatology.

We suddenly find out we are anachronistic? But this is how we identified ourselves so that people like Ricky Gervais (the atheists) wouldn’t know what we believed. Only those in the know would get It, and we could communicate in our own secret language. In fact I have been cut off by a good Christian or two with a fish sign on their bumper, but they communicated by only throwing one. Curious.

In the end, Mr. Mitchum wants us to buy a throw three bumper sticker, put it on our car and when we see another indentified three thrower we should pull up beside them and throw three at them (unless you are in Serbia or East LA). This will allow the two of you and I quote to “share a few seconds of intimacy.”

Really?  A few seconds of intimacy? What the heck is that?

All I can say is that if you can only spare a few seconds of intimacy with a hand gesture doing 70 on the interstate, maybe you ought to get some sort of spiritual Viagra.  

I’ve made an animation of a new gesture that I think is unique—and gives a nod to all of those fish. Warning: this is not highway tested for safety or intimacy.  See video.