Porsche

This post has been building for awhile. It is long. Sorry. It is part of my story I want to preserve for my kids.

Did you know I worked for Porsche in my former life?(pre husband, two kids and a mortgage) After I taught kindergarten and up until I had been married 6 months, I spent a few years working the AAA auto show circuit as a Product Specialist for Porsche at their North American Auto Shows. ( Say it all together with me now ... Por-sha ... That is how Dr. Porsche introduced himself, so that is how it is said.) Product specialists are the people the bigger car companies send to the shows to answer questions about the cars and manage the display in addition to the salesmen the local dealerships send. Auto shows Top: LA Middle: NewYork Bottom: Chicago They all look alike don't they?
Auto shows are sort of like the circus. Instead of tents they are housed in convention centers. Instead of animals there are cars. Instead of clowns there are detailers. Instead of bearded ladies there are demostraters in sequined low cut dresses. Instead of fire eating trapese artist, there are product specialist. The trade show industry is a world unto itself. Same crews and staff, same cars, same sets and even same carpet, just different towns and different crowds, although these two seem to run together and feel the same after awhile.

I really loved my time with Porsche. I traveled the US, wore Donna Karen suits and Via Spiga shoes, and learned lots about the amazing German automobile company Porsche. I racked up the frequent flier miles, stayed in cush hotels, and met people I would never have known even existed other wise. Even though it was very un-me, I was really good at my job. Give me a nice SUV that can handle ranch roads, pot holes, and haul furniture, over a Boxster any ole day. (Now Porsche makes a SUV but they didn't then.)

I even aced Porsche school. I could hang with the techies. I knew gear shift ratios, torque settings, and even obscure brake caliper variants. I was a bit of a geek in that respect...but "geek" is good sometimes.... Just ask Bill Gates! I met German engineers and men who spent their whole lives working for Porsche. Some had started as kids cleaning scraps off the Strutgart factory floors during the World Wars and eventually risen to the top of the company. Their fathers and sons worked for Porsche. It is a very family centered company. Last I heard, the Porsche family still had controlling interest in the company...Though the "Global Market" was constantly challenging their abilities to compete and grow while keeping it in the family.
Karen and I in the grandfather to the Boxster, the Spyder 550 "Museum " Car in Miami (This is the model James Dean drove.)

I even met the self declared Prince of Porsche, Jerry Seinfield. The LA show was my baby ( I was lead staff) in 1997 the year the Boxster was introduced. I got to open car doors and fetch Evian for the likes of Arnold, Jay Leno and Cortney Cox. (Biggest shocker...I was a full inch or so taller than Arnold in my three inch Amalfi's!)

It wasn't all glitz and glamour. Standing on your feet for 12 hours in those 3 inch heels was painful! Getting out of the show around 11pm, just in time to go collapse in a hotel bed and start again the next day at 7:00am was exhausting. Living out of a hotel was fun but also lonely. I won't even go into the party scene. The party scene in these big cities was a far cry from the little gatherings I occasionally dropped in on in San Angelo! Let's just say I was very sheltered growing up and it so showed! I did not know what half the stuff people were doing even was. I stayed away from all of it, partly because I was too pooped to go anywhere but dinner after my long days and, partly because I was scared and generally uninterested.

I befriended some of the guys who ran the detail company we used, and the head of show security. These guys, along with a few other married ladies from our marketing company, were my friends. We had long talks on slow days all the while sitting back to back in a show booth answering the occasional question. We always had to face the public. Secret shoppers were paid to come check up on us. One bad secret shopper report and we would be on a plane home never to return. There was pressure to perform.
Test Driving the Boxster at its US introduction in Phoenix

My Porsche days seem like a dizzy whirl of airports, convention centers, taxis and hotels. It was fun for a while, but by the time it ended, I just wanted to be home. I wanted to wake up in the same bed as my husband and have friends that lived near me more than 2 weeks a month. I wanted to go to church, the same church, with my husband and people I knew. Looking back I wonder if God gave me that glimpse of the other life so that I would be more content with my stay home Mom life now.

Spending so much concentrated time with people whose beliefs and back grounds were so different from mine gave me an outlook on church, religion and God that was unique for someone of my "churched" up bringing. Please don't take this as my saying that a "churched upbringing" is a bad thing. To the contrary, I am very grateful to have been raised in a church. (Notice I did not say THE church.) But my Porsche days were spent with a decidedly un-churched crowd.

You get a different perspective when you view church through unchurched eyes. First of all, for the most part, unchurched people don't do the denominational dividing of Christians that Christians do. Just like we look at other non-christian religions in large undivided groups such as Jews, Muslims, Hindus etc., most look at us as just Christians. I wish we looked at ourselves more that way. Second, music or a lack of music, had little relevance to my unchurched friends. It seems that we are the ones who make the big deal about that. Third, even those who did not profess to attend a church of any kind, wanted their children to go to a church. I always found that refreshing, yet odd. The role of a community children's ministry, or even the reach of our current mothers-day-out and preschool programs is often underdeveloped and unappreciated. People will do for their children what they will not do for themselves. This is a barely tapped mission field.
Late night at the booth in LA

I also noticed that few who I considered "unchurched" were turned off by talk of faith in or the idea of God or Jesus Christ. BUT many were totally turned off by churches and Christians who they considered intellectually inferior or fake. I think that is why I am so interested in the post-modern theory as it relates to churches. Many lessons of the post modern movement echo what I experienced. I think that is why so many of the traditions of our "little tribe" rub me the wrong way. I'm sensitive to things I never would have noticed had I not spent time working in the circus world of auto shows.

There is one more thing my time with Porsche really taught me. Morals without Jesus are not enough. I worked with several "good" people, but with out a Lordship to direct them, their moral compass was off. It showed in their marriages and their relationships with their kids. It came across in their business dealings and in their day to day dealings. They might do the right thing in word and deed but their hearts were not in it.

For example, a salesman told me in 22 years he had never cheated on his wife. I thought "Hey, a good guy with morals." When he added it was because his wife owned a PI firm and the alimony would be too high, I realized doing the right thing for the wrong reasons is not enough. He wasn't kidding either. I met his wife at dinner one night and she told me the same thing ...that she knew he didn't cheat on her because she routinely had him tailed. WOW! Later my coworker said the wife told me about tailing her husband to warn me from messing with him! I was flabbergasted!(He was old and none too cute..eewww!) What a marriage! Can you imagine?

My point is that GOD and JESUS are so necessary in our lives. They are not optional. Even though I was raised in a great church family, educated at a christian university, and experienced as a missionary in Kenya for six months, I did not "get it" completely until my time in the trenches with Porsche. There are so many people who need GOD. They don't need religion. They don't need a free Bible in a hotel. They need a person of flesh to show them a Savior who transcends flesh and blood. I hope in the next twenty years our churches will evolve into bodies that heed the urgency of the Gospel and treat GOD and JESUS as necessary for a lost world, in spite of our church cultural traditions.

I personally have such a struggle with this. I get so overwhelmed with my struggles and hardships that I forget that all this earth stuff doesn't matter when compared to the question of eternity. The retreat this weekend reminded me of God's love for his children who have yet to find him. There are people around me everyday who seem to have the earth stuff licked, but their eternity is still lost. Do I see that? I mean really see the eternal picture of those who do not claim Christ?

I long for salvation goggles! I want to see the world through the filter of Jesus blood. Only then will I see how things really are. That type vision doesn't come standard on any of us. It's an upgrade none of us could afford. Jesus bought the option of salvation for any who claim HIM. We just have to let Him in the drivers seat.....And not even a Porsche can provide that kind of ride!

Blessings blog family!