Hot Wheels
This is my mid-life crisis. It’s a Mercedes AMG GT. Do you like it?
In all seriousness, at mid-life now I am doing what many at my age do. I’m taking stock of my life. I’m looking back at where I’ve come from and looking forward toward where I want to go – what I hope to change, how I hope to grow, and what I want to do with the second half of my life. It’s an exercise of both regret and gratitude.
But I think the way forward begins with…hot wheels. Seriously.
When I was a boy, I was obsessed with hot wheels. So much so that I would wait until my family was all asleep and sneak out of bed and play with them by nightlight in my room until the wee hours of the morning. For much of my life I looked back on that time with great nostalgia. How carefree those days seemed to be when all that seemed important was which toy car was fastest! But I’m learning that what was really going on was something much deeper. I was learning to compensate for my anxieties about my life and the world. It was then – in those “carefree years” – that I learned how to perform and people please in order to get what I wanted and make myself feel important and strong. And it was then that I learned to escape – into a hot wheels world – to distract myself from the pain and insecurity I felt in my home and with my friends.
Hot wheels fostered my imagination and that was a very good thing. And in many ways I think I need to get more hot wheels right now – to play more and take myself a lot less seriously. But my point is that hot wheels also taught me the art of escaping from pain. To shut off the bedtime anxieties and insecurities on my own. Hot wheels would later turn into and the momentary pleasures of junk food and then to my need to be the best baseball player on the team and then to a quest for popularity and then to the accumulation of money and then to the preoccupation with work notoriety and then to numbing alcohol – all places where I could either feel strong and important or where I could escape from my anxieties and insecurities. So in truth, my Mercedes AGM GT hot wheel is not unlike many of the adult toys or practices we typically turn to during a mid-life crisis. What have you learned to turn to to make yourself feel secure? To feel strong and important? What have you learned to turn to to escape your anxiety and insecurity?
In all three of the synoptic Gospels (Matthew 19, Mark 10, Luke 18) there’s scene where people were bringing little children to Jesus for him to touch them and pray for them. The disciples with Jesus rebuked the children and their parents. He’s got more adult things to do! No, Jesus insists, “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the Kingdom of God” (Luke 18:16b). This is immediately followed in all three Gospels by the account of the Rich Young Ruler who asks Jesus what he must do to have the Kingdom of God. And Jesus goes right after all those things which might make him feel strong and important. All those things he’s learned to escape into in the midst of his own anxieties and insecurities. “Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me (Luke 18:22b).”
Notice the comparison of the rich young ruler and the little children brought to Jesus? The kids don’t have the things that prohibit the rich young ruler from experiencing the grace of Jesus – the ways he’s learned to make himself feel strong and important and the ways he’s learned to escape from his anxieties and insecurities on his own. The rich young ruler – if he wants to experience God’s grace – must let go of those worldly securities and come and follow.
The text tells us he makes the sad choice of hanging onto his hot wheels. That they are more important to his security than Jesus is.
These days I’m regretting so much of the time I’ve spent during the first half of life trying to make myself feel strong and important or escaping my anxieties and insecurities. But I’m also so grateful that Jesus still bids me to come and follow like a little child. I’m learning how to face hard feelings better now and – like a little child – take them to Jesus instead who invites me each day to come, follow and experience his grace and love. I’m learning my need to daily give up my hot wheels. I’m learning what Henri Nouwen said so profoundly: “Every time you do something that comes from your needs for acceptance, affirmation, or affection, and every time you do something that makes these needs grow, you know that you are not with God. These needs will never be satisfied; they will only increase when you yield to them. But every time you do something for the glory of God, you will know God’s peace in your heart and find rest there.”