Back when the nuns taught me the Bible in grade school, I think I had trouble understanding some of the ideas.
I completely got don’t kill, love your parents (even if that can be tough for a kid sometimes) and don’t steal, but the whole “do not covet” thing might have gone over my head a little bit.
That’s tough for a kid. Who doesn’t want the kinds of things that their friends have, but their parents won’t buy for them? Especially in an era where video game systems were just starting to pop up everywhere.
This whole concept, however, has started to become more clear over the past year or year and a half.
I have not undergone some religious conversion. My clarity comes from my car, which I purchased last winter.
However, the vehicle purchase didn’t eliminate any potential coveting because I enjoyed peace with my decision. Oh, no, the new car made me covet things even more.
I love my car. It handles great and gets great gas mileage and has some bells and whistles which make my daily commute much more tolerable. But the absence of one item which I had on my previous car has ramped up the coveting to an all-time high.
My car does not have a sunroof. With the kind of weather we have had recently, I have a feeling I might break a few commandments other than the whole coveting thing if it meant getting a sunroof on my car.
The blame for this situation falls squarely on my own head. When I realized that my old car was headed for the junkyard, I had to develop priorities for its replacement. The purchase came a year or so earlier than I anticipated, making me focus on finances kind of closely.
That meant a sunroof fell into the category of “would be nice’ instead of “must have.” I distinctly remember looking at the options for the car I wanted and knowing I would regret going with a model without a sunroof no matter how much sense it made for my bank account.
For a while, I didn’t have too many regrets. The heat of last summer made the point moot. I didn’t see myself driving with the sunroof open when I felt like I was traveling through a furnace. For a while, I thought I had made the right decision.
Then we got into this mild summer, and all that went in the trash. I used to enjoy few things more than my early morning commute down back roads to Baltimore with the sunroof open. Now when I leave in the morning, I crack a few windows to enjoy the fresh air, but it’s just not the same.
I understand that we can file this whole thing under “First World Problems,” but that doesn’t stop the coveting. Life throws a bunch of decisions at us and buying a car without a sunroof so we can continue to pay our mortgage is just one of the ones I don’t like.
Because if I had to sleep in my car because I bought one with a sunroof when I couldn’t afford it, I don’t think I’d care what kind of features it had.