We’ve got a new car to replace the one that got crunched two weeks ago. And though our new car is just someone else’s old car, we made out pretty well in the deal. It’s the exact same make and model, but two years and 100,000 miles newer — so what’s not to love?

Well, maybe ‘love’ is too strong a word. But we do tend to get a little silly about our new acquisitions sometimes. Having a new car to fuss over has made me remember a short news story I read years ago. That story taught me something about materialism that I’ve never forgotten.

This happened when I lived in Northwest Indiana. The story was just a news brief a couple paragraphs long about a woman who was killed by a train. Sad to say, that isn’t that unusual of an occurrence in that area. Many of the towns are still criss-crossed with railroad tracks out there and unfortunately, accidents are bound to happen. But there were a few things that made this one unusual, and I found I had to re-read it a couple times to get things straight.

The accident had happened on a street that was bisected by a railroad crossing. The street had gotten a little busy, and a traffic jam had the cars backed up across the railroad tracks and behind when the signal started blinking. The woman who was on the tracks began to panic and lean on her horn, but the cars in front of her had no place they could go. The woman was so intent on making the cars in front move that she didn’t notice that the cars behind her had managed to pull out of the way so she could back up. She also didn’t think to just leave the car, which there was room enough and time enough to do.
But she didn’t back up, and she didn’t get out of the car. She stayed in the car on the tracks, and she was killed when the car was hit by the train.

Why would a grown woman have done such a thing? The article only offered two clues. The car was a gold Mercedes-Benz, and one of her grown children told the paper, “She really loved that car.”

Now, I don’t think this woman loved her car more than her own life. I suppose it’s possible, but it sounds more plausible to me that she never thought it would come to that. She certainly could’ve been so paralyzed with fear that she did the only thing that brought complete disaster — nothing at all. But that also seems like a bit of a stretch, given how easy it would’ve been to get out of the situation.

What seems more possible to me is that in those awful last minutes when she needed to think clearly, the Mercedes-Benz had a place in her calculations and it diverted her attention. I don’t think she meant to die — I just don’t think she was able to turn loose of the idea that the CAR was going to get hit, which kept her from either noticing the way out behind her or getting out of her car so that her life would be spared.

We have all sorts of material attachments. As Orthodox Americans, we’re well aware of the dance we do with materialism. We’re absolutely swimming in Things, in Stuff. Houses, cars, furniture, jewelry, gadgets, favorite shirts, knick-knacks, cherished souvenirs, memorabilia. What are the odds those attachments would ever trip us up as this woman’s car did to her? How likely is it that without any warning we might suddenly have to decide whether to really abandon them or not?

Maybe that’s not likely at all. But then, there’s a dynamic there that still exists even if most of us won’t die for it one way or the other. Saint John of Kronstadt said, “The Devil himself dwells in the man through his attachment to earthly things. He often enters into our heart as an insolent conqueror, through some momentary attachment to earthly things, not immediately renounced — darkening, crushing and deadening our soul.”

Or, perhaps more to the point, Jesus ends the parable of the foolish rich man by saying, “But God said unto him, ‘Thou foolish one, this night is thy soul required of thee; and the things which thou hast prepared, whose shall they be?’ So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God. (Luke 12:20-21)”

The good thing about cars is that they can take you lots of places. I guess I just want to make sure that I can make my way back from anyplace they take me.