Mincey’s Musings
Year Two, Week Thirty-Two

Someone once called Lincoln “two-faced”, to which he comically replied, “If I had two faces, do you think I’d wear this one?”

What about double-minded-ness? A friend new to my life with whom I now attend church loaned me a copy of a Bible commentary on Ephesians and Philippians. On page 165 of the second part of this book, the author states: “We are constituted to be able to think consciously of only one thing at a time. If we are thinking of something good, we cannot be thinking of something bad at the same time.” [Phillips, John (1995). Exploring Ephesians & Philippians: An expository commentary. The John Phillips Commentary Series. Grand Rapids, MI: Kregal Publications.] I pondered this statement. Is it really true, and is it true for every person in all instances?

I inherited a 1967 Chevrolet Impala from my father. My landlord’s sons did auto body work, and I spent a few hundred dollars to have the old car painted. Learning is a painful, sometimes costly experience. A friend of mine later told me these men did not put half the paint on the car that they had purchased. From this I learned that even those who
you think you know best might cheat you when given opportunity.

I was checking the water in the battery and laid the cover on the top of the front fender. From that I learned never to let anything that isn’t absolutely necessary touch the paint of a car. The battery acid on the cover ate a small but distinguishable hole through the brand new candy apple red paint on the fender, down to the metal.

On a trip to take a summer evening class at Lincoln Memorial University, a car pulled out in front of me. When the driver saw he didn’t have time to cross the highway in front of me, he stopped dead in the middle of the road. I hit the brakes and fishtailed into his front fender, in turn smashing my rear fender, and careened across the lane of oncoming traffic. I crashed into the ditch in right in front of an eighteen wheeler. Fortunately, a highway trooper was sitting at the side of the road and saw the entire episode, so the fault was appropriately attributed to the other driver. Fortunately, no one was injured, particularly the other driver’s pregnant wife. Fortunately, my car was still drivable and I made it to class, though somewhat late. Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough common sense to listen to my mother, who told me to sign nothing. And, as Forrest Gump would say, “That’s all I have to say about that.”

I was greatly distressed about my bad experiences with the car, and they mounted and preyed on my mind. The wreck happened in the summer of 1987, right before I started my first year teaching at Luttrell Elementary. What a sight I was: 120 pounds soaking wet, still with acne, wearing polyester clothes that hadn’t been in style probably since before I was born, pompously carrying a briefcase, driving that old beat up car. I think some of my colleagues had bets on how long I’d survive.

It was my habit in those days to read for a few minutes before I left for work. At the time just after the wreck, I read a book titled "The Burnt Orange Heresy.” I honestly don’t remember one thing about that book, except its title and that the cover was orange. My mind was only on my foolish actions and misfortunes surrounding my first car.

Though this example would seem to prove Phillip’s point, there are times of less stress when I seem to be able to think about more than one thing. One of my favorite activities is riding a lawnmower. I am very consciously aware of what I’m doing and where I’m going in the yard, but I can think about a myriad of other things at the same time—the past week at work, the Sunday School lesson, memories of the past, dreams of the future. Granted, I may be only thinking of one thing at a time in addition to mowing the lawn, but my thoughts seem to just flow almost at their own will, similar to conducting a search in Internet, where one thing seems to lead to another.

And perhaps our minds change as we grow older. It’s hard to say, as no two people are the same.

Next week, Faithful Reader, I’ll share with you some of my dreams, some political, some reptilian. (Is there a difference, one might sarcastically ask?) That is, if my mind doesn’t change . . . that is, if I can remember . . . who are you, anyway?