Jesus built my hotrod
The Devil isn't in the details. God is.
With this essay, we mark the third anniversary of this newsletter. In celebration, today’s tale weaves together thoughts on making things with introspections on God, cars, and industrial metal music. (Note I did not say “successfully weaves.”) Enjoy, if only for the sheer spectacle of it all. ~JRC
Designing, making, and fixing things is an emotional experience for many, while others dismiss it as entirely functional. Diverse is the range of human experience, and so too is our connection with creativity.
I understand the utilitarian aspect of making stuff. And often I assign only the most basic meaning to the process. But othertimes it feels, somehow, more, somehow - dare I say it - spiritual. In these moments, I’m left wondering, what if?
Inevitably, I turn the speakers up to drown out the noise.
It's our nature to assign meaning; we long for it and even need it. We want to feel part of something greater than ourselves and yearn for purpose. Truly, if we desire anything, it is an explanation for all that perplexes, befuddles, and dismays. So when answers are scarce, this fervency has us manufacturing meaning wholesale. Religion, in this context, is nothing more than assigning answers to unanswerable questions. God is a fabrication called forth to explain the inexplicable.
True, we humans fabricate things not only with our hands but with our minds. The stuff from our hands is a matter of mind, after all. Observe a child at play to see how fantastical human creativity can be. Left without answers, adults create all manner of meaning too, often harmful and self-destructive meaning. An unreturned call, an eerie coincidence, unrequited love, a botched valve job, and of course the age old “why are we here?” - without apparent cause and effect, we create stories that help us make sense of it all, even if we arrive at rather unhelpful conclusions.
Realists and otherwise "level-headed" individuals tend to suppress such fabrications. The world is as it is. Where there are no answers, there's no sense in searching. Move on. Get past it. Start over. Conjurings of the mind are nothing more than magical thinking. And there's no magic to be had in this cruel and uncaring universe. So don't bother, they say. Find your purpose if it's nothing more than a means to keep oneself in the good graces of others. But don't make it all up. To do so is delusional, a farce, and a waste of mental space best used for other endeavors.
And then there are the devout - those humans who believe in something more and see more in everything we do. To these souls, a greater power is steering us. More than chance, genetics, or hard work, our purpose resides out there and not within. But it is inside us all the same, ushering us along as we make our way. The very expression of creativity is an act of the divine.
More than talent made tangible, making is God's work.
"Jesus Built My Hotrod" is a song by the influential American industrial metal band Ministry. Released in 1991, this improbable hit incorporates a variety of musical styles along with a dizzying array of incomprehensible vocals sung by Butthole Surfers lead singer Gibby Haynes. Paired with a lightning-quick guitar piece by Ministry's frontman Al Jourgensen, and driven by unrelenting drums, this song unquestionably hits you with a wall of sound (I know all this, incidentally, because I just read the Wikipedia article on the song.) You can listen to "Jesus Built My Hotrod" and watch the official music video here on YouTube.
The song - "JBMH" - is not a religious riff by far. Considering Ministry's album names like "The Land of Rape and Honey," "Psalm 69," and "Filth Pig," and even deduced from the band's duplicitous name, it's probably safe to say that JBMH is yet another rock song denigrating organized religion. To be fair, it's pretty hard to tell from the vocals - the lyrics are 100% incomprehensible, often repeated variations of "ding-a-ling lang, a dang-a-long ling-long." (Haynes was said to be blind drunk while recording the song, so maybe he was having a religious experience. Who's to say?)
Don't get me wrong - I love this song and have been a fan of Ministry for decades (it’s often my “noise of choice” when I need an escape). But the title - Jesus Built My Hotrod - leaves so much to the imagination that I've often thought to myself, what does it mean? There's so much to unpack; it evokes religion, old-school masculinity, creativity, and even destruction.
The question of God's role oozes from this deceptively nonsensical tag.
Fact check: Jesus was a carpenter not a mechanic, so the story goes, in a time long before the invention of automobiles. But would he not pick up a wrench today just as likely as a hammer? More pertinent, does he not guide the hand that turns that wrench, even now?
Oh, the philosophizing around such rhetorical musings!
Like many growing up in God-fearing communities, I rebelled against organized religion after a short stint trying to make it make sense. I learned to loathe the hypocrisy of it all, troubled by all the mistrust, hate, and “othering” committed in the name of God. No god I can imagine is on both sides of a war, for example. (Except maybe a mischievous one like those Greek troublemakers of old.) More hypocritical still is the debate over whose god is better.
My family went for a brief time to a Methodist church while I was a pre-teen, and my siblings and I were baptized there. It appeared all for not when classmates of other protestant denominations declared we weren't really “baptized,” given that Methodists don't submerge; they only sprinkle. It seems we barely had room for the competing denominations of Christians in that no-stoplight town.
Confused immensely, I finally gave up on God entirely.
But today, things are different. Time has a way of softening the edges. Once-perceived stark realities are no more. Oddly, as I’ve gained so much clarity in so many ways, my definitions of right and wrong are now far from clear. Especially in a world where so much deception abounds and endless chaos erupts at the most illogical times, a dogmatic view of “the way” is unhelpful, and possibly unobtainable.
It's a big, mixed-up planet, and it's only getting murkier by the minute. Absolutes are nowhere to be found. And the only use for black-and-white thinking is as a weapon for those seeking to divide us. God, if he (she?) exists, is not in the absolutes. Instead, she resides, if at all, in that haze that surrounds us, enveloping everything, enshrouding us absolutely in anything but absolutes. Here, in the ill-defined region between good and evil, right and wrong, and, quite possibly, in the tolerances of a fine-tuned engine, we can find God - if we believe.
I'm not saying I do - believe in God. But there's room enough in my life for the possibility of something more, something well beyond my understanding. In creating, and embracing a will to make things, we embody what it means to make things better. If not God, at least it’s good.
Diving deep into a project, the divide between maker and what is made disappears. Our consciousness extends beyond the physical body and inhabits that which is made. Here, in the depths of design, lines fade and feelings of a higher purpose resonate.
One sees how little all of it matters as one creates. And yet, we manage to do it anyway. And herein lies the promise and, quite possibly, even redemption in making things. It’s a spark of light in a dimly lit world.
A brightened day after giving a handmade gift. A better mood after being in the shop. Quality time alone means better times together. These little things keep it all from spinning out of control. And it keeps us away from our lesser demons.
Mindful of the minutia without being overwhelmed by the whole, we manage to keep going as we focus and take care of the task at hand.
In this way, taking one's talents and creating is transcendent. Making something work that heretofore did not is sublime. Coaxing a thought into reality through art is divine.
The hand of humanity is the hand of God, if only in a metaphysical twist of meaning. Perhaps more? I have no idea. But if it helps, then why not?
Jesus built your hotrod. Well, okay, man. It looks like you did a great job, but if you want to give credit to a higher power, I believe it. Indeed, the Devil isn't in the details. God is. And if that means a reworked set of wheels ready to roar down the strip, then go with God.
Ding-a-ling lang, a dang-a-long ling-long.
Until next time.
JRC
Ding-a-ling lang, a dang-a-long ling-long.