Fish Shirts and other Creature Comforts

Our days are pretty hectic. We are learning to parent kids, not just kid. Amazing what a difference that little ‘s’ makes. At the end of the day, we are pretty tired. So, once these yahoos are in bed and we have had our dinner and the dishes are done, which hopefully, I’ve helped with, she comes into the family room and says with a sigh, “It’s time for the fish shirt.” 

Ann has this sweatshirt that she stole from her dad when she was little. It is incredibly old. And, if we are being honest, not exactly the pinnacle of fashion. It has a cartoon fisherman standing in a boat casting his line down one of the sleeves. Midway down the right sleeve of this sweatshirt, you discover that the fisherman has hooked this enormous cartoon fish with big googly eyes.

In our house, the fish shirt has taken on almost mythological status. It is so much more than a shirt. It is a symbol that the work for the day is done and now it is time to get comfortable and relax. This shirt symbolizes the rest that both of us crave after a day of work and chasing our little ones around the house. Relaxation and rest is much harder if you aren’t in your comfy clothes. The fish shirt provides the comfort necessary for re-creation.

As diversified as fashion has become these days, most Americans are really just walking around in fish shirts. Our houses are filled with devices aimed at decreasing stress and anxiety while maximizing our comfort level (I’m sitting in one example of that as I’m writing this).

Products develop around new technologies and features aimed at increasing the level of comfort that each one can deliver the consumer. Take, for example, the car. (Disclaimer: This is not a historical account.) When it was created, the only climate control was based on what the weather was outside since you were literally in the outdoors when you were in one. So, to shield us from bad weather, we developed stronger roofs and windows.

We still had to deal with the problem of temperature, though. So, heaters were installed to keep us warm. The summer months were another problem all together. Climate control in the summer time used to mean rolling down the windows and you prayed you could air the car out before sitting down on those molten lava hot vinyl seats. But with the advent of the air conditioner, cars now had the ability to deliver the proper comfort to the whole car regardless of season, without having to roll down the windows (who has time for that anyway).

Once the mini-van came around, and I’m assuming once parents got tired of their kids moaning about how hot/cold they were, the rear climate control feature was added, allowing those in the back seat to control the force and temperature of the air flow. That however, was not enough because the driver and the passenger (for too long!) had to barter over the temperature coming from the front vents. No more though! The dual climate control feature was added now allowing everyone in the car to determine for themselves just the right temperature for them to be comfortable. (This is, of course, to say nothing of the new options made available to us by heated and cooled seats!)

We have become a highly comfortable society and thus we are driven by the pursuit of these comforts. But the question I’ve been wondering about is; how has an obsession with comfort crept into the ways we practice our faith?

In many ways, the answer is simply that we have taken something that should make us mainly uncomfortable and turned into something that helps increase our comfort. We have become very adept at turning the gospel life into the secret path to personal happiness, or a way to attain the life we have always wanted. More than the many who make a very good life telling people that God wants them to have a good life, regular, everyday Christians have trouble thinking about the gospel as something other than a way to be comfortable. I know that my actions all too often make it seem like its something I think as well.

This certainly makes it hard to see how Jesus could define the good life as giving up your life for him or for your neighbor. It makes it hard to see how taking up your cross and following him in the way of death could be anything other than a metaphor about personal humility. It makes it hard to see how Jesus could have goals outside of fixing my life and making me comfortable. It just makes it hard to see clearly.