“Jesus is the Sticker on the Bumper of My Soul” Gets Real Lyrics.*

When your engine’s barely pulling
And the ride is kinda rough,
When your life is really feeling
Like it might be getting tough.

There’s a fine hands-on solution
Sure to ease the way you go:
Let the Lord be your mechanic!
He’s your all-time maintenance pro.

Well now Jesus is the sticker on the bumper of my soul.
He’s my whole trip’s ambition, the sum total of my goal.
And I’m getting better mileage from every tank of fuel
‘Cause my chassis’s free of evil and I know that I’m no fool.

Your lower tailgate panel
Could be dragging in the dirt.
You might find that some corrosion’s
Eaten out the engine skirt.

And that fender’s gotten dented
From your sinning, straying ways.
It is time you drove your spirit
To the good Lord’s service bays.

Well now Jesus is the sticker on the bumper of my soul.
He’s my whole trip’s ambition, the sum total of my goal.
And I’m getting better mileage from every tank of fuel
‘Cause my chassis’s free of evil and I know that I’m no fool.

Oh yes Jesus is the sticker on the bumper of my soul.
His Gospel is my owner’s guide, his Book my holy scroll.
He has polished out the wrinkles so it’s mighty clear to see
That I’m driving straight to glory, that my trip is heavenly.

*The song title was one of several created by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett for their novel Good Omens, published originally in 1990 and later updated. So the title is their property. However, these lyrics are ©2009, Richard Laurence Baron.

**Of the hundreds of related bumper stickers on the Web, I picked the one above because I’m tickled by the two-sentiment combo. Don’t get excited – it’s just a blog illustration.

Pumpkin Centrism

“Baptist Pumpkin Center” is today’s subject. I’m not the only person to notice the sign on I-12, the one that Barbara and I pass once or twice a year going around the New Orleans area, on our way to and from Atlanta. Thousands of drivers see it coming and going and it’s too much fun to pass up. Bill Rempel posted about it briefly here.

That would be Exit 35 on this short “intrastate” Interstate. It really does mark Pumpkin Road on the west side of Hammond (or Ponchatoula, depending on your point of view. Whatever.) It’s likely there are Baptists on Pumpkin here – although you’re more likely to find a bunch of them on Pecan here; Immanuel Baptist Church is on Pecan Street in Hammond.

Friends, I think today’s text is about opportunity. The Exit 35 sign is pretty specific: this here’s a Baptist Pumpkin Center. Not your Methodist or even your high-church Episcopalian Pumpkin Center. Certainly not your namby-pamby, ecumenical “Christian” Pumpkin Center. Down here north of New Orleans, there’s room in folks’ hearts for just one center of squash fruit, or Cucurbita Cucurbitaceae as pumpkinados persist in saying, and that’s the Baptist Pumpkin Center.

(Sigh. A pumpkinado is a person who’s a squash enthusiast – a fan – but that’s for another post.)

Other religions could have the own pumpkin centers. I’m surprised that the Catholic Church hasn’t already established its own pumpkin centers on a worldwide basis. There’d be a good deal more ceremony attached to these. Perhaps Brandeis University has established its own pumpkin center, a Jewish pumpkin center; or, since there’s already been a considerable effort to plant trees in Israel, a global effort to establish pumpkin centers in the Holy Land will soon appear in synagogue religious schools throughout the US. Then the issue of whether the patches would be Orthodox or Reform pumpkin centers would rear its unattractive head…pumpkins are kosher for Passover as far as I know.

Muslim pumpkin centers might suffer from the same kind of doctrinal split: Sunni or Shia? Buddhists might welcome the peaceful nature of their own pumpkin patches, wherein the Eight-fold Way could be contemplated.

I do not advocate proselytizing insofar as pumpkins are concerned – no. A person’s pumpkin preference ought to be his or her own, I say. So really, Pumpkin Centers could be like those all-faith chapels one sees in airports (praying that you aren’t trapped on a delayed flight can address any form of deity…and pumpkin).

It’s possible to blame this all on Charlie Brown and Linus’s search for the Great Pumpkin. But I’m thinking that “Pumpkin Centrism” is older than that, rooted deeply in America’s spiritual reawakening in the early 19th Century. And the Baptist Pumpkin Center in Louisiana is one of the last visible remnants of this nationwide urge toward gourdish worship practices.

Well, I thought this would be a good day to bring it all to your attention – and my thanks to “Lyria” (T A Noonan) for the photo. May the Great Pumpkin watch over you and keep you, no matter in what Center you worship.