Finally, frustrated and upset, I called my husband, who couldn't figure out my mystery either. Visions of sitting in a 90 degree car for an hour waiting for a Triple A rescue vehicle flashed through my mind. Paul gave me the phone number for Northtown KIA. I called, and I described my plight to a secretary in Service, who said promptly "Hold your key fob right up next to the "start" button, and try to start the car." (She said it SO promptly that I figured she got a call like mine at least once a day.)
It worked like a charm! Never has an engine purr sounded so sweet.
"The battery's dead in your key fob," she said. "Bring it in to Parts and we'll install a new one."
"Don't turn the car off!" Paul said when I called him back with the good news. "Drive straight to Northtown!!"
I sort of did. Lin sat in a still-running car while I ran into First Niagara bank, and then we drove to Northtown, where the man in Parts, while installing my new battery, said (pulling the fob apart) "when that happened, you could have used this key that's part of your fob to start your car. That's why you have it."
He looked at my thunder-struck face and added "Everybody forgets that they have that key." I could have added that I didn't even know where to insert that key.
I must confess here that I do not particularly like driving. In fact, when I am very stressed, my tension shows up in my dreams in this way: I am driving a car down a winding road reminiscent of a roller coaster in its loops and curls, and that car is totally out of control! The brakes don't work; I'm frantically swerving here and there to avoid an accident, and trying to figure out how to stop. By the end of the dream I stop the car - or it's stopped by being snarled in all sorts of debris - but I'm frightened out of my wits.
It didn't take me long to figure out how to interpret this kind of recurring dream, and my interpretation is backed up by the experts. Freud suggested that in dreams cars often represent ourselves and reveal how we're getting through or dealing with life at that point in time. The car can symbolize our body, our mind, or our ego. Jung said that an auto symbolizes our social persona or who we are to others. The various "happenings" to the car in our dream reveal our thoughts and feelings to us about how much power or control we have over our life. Obviously my dreams occur whenever I feel as if my life is out of control! If my car wouldn't start in my dream, that would mean that I felt as if my life or dreams etc. were at a stand-still.
So often we feel as if our lives are on automatic - that the key fob for stops and starts is safely in our own pocket or purse, for us to control our lives. Then something happens and life spins out of control, or is frustratingly at a standstill. What happens? We try all sorts of machinations to jump start our lives, turn them in a better direction. We go to the experts who everyone says are rescue vehicles. Nothing happens! The battery of our key fob, our spirit, has totally run down.
When our spiritual battery runs down and is useless, we forget that we have a back-up, because our back-up often seems hidden, quiet. As that man in Parts said to me, "Everybody forgets that they have that key to start their car." In this case, the key to re-start and re-direct our lives that we all forget about from time to time is Jesus. Jesus has so many reverent titles. One of them, quite beautiful, is "Jesus, Key of David." The key and scepter are symbols of kingly power and authority, and Jesus, Son of God, is also Son of Mary: through both Joseph and Mary, Jesus is of the House of King David, greatest King of Israel.
The prophet Isaiah said (22:22) "I will place the key of the House of David on his shoulder. When he opens, no one shall shut; when he shuts, no one shall open."
The Book of Revelation echoes these words by saying about Jesus "The Holy One, the true, who wields David's key, who opens and no one can close, who closes and no one can open."
Jesus himself quotes Isaiah when he boldly proclaims in his hometown synagogue "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me....He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind." Then he adds "Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."
Jesus, who lives hidden in our souls, is always quietly moving in our lives, opening and shutting various "doors" to open a way for us to realize who he is for us. Things we pray for, yearn for, don't happen. Things we never expected to happen, do. He is the key who opens the doors of our hearts when we have them resolutely locked to keep him out. He is the key who opens the locks of whatever chains we've placed upon ourselves, making ourselves captives - chains of fear, anxiety, addictions, prejudices, feuds, pride. He is the key who restarts our lives when they've come to a standstill from grief or trauma.
During the last week of Advent, the Church uses various titles for Jesus in the "O Antiphons" for the Liturgy of the Hours (the Prayers of the Church) as well as for Gospel acclamations at Mass. They are also used in that lovely Advent hymn "O Come O Come Emmanuel." The antiphon used for Jesus the Key is "O Key of David and Scepter of the House of Israel, you open and no man closes; you close and no man opens. Come, and deliver from the chains of prison those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death."
From the moment we realize that death IS real - through the death of a loved one, or even from watching someone die, - we sit in its shadow. When will death happen to me? we wonder, terrified. When will this auto that is myself finally stop forever? This fear can so imprison us that Death seems the end of the road and life seems meaningless.
But if this is all that we think or feel, we truly are in the darkness of prison. Jesus has, by his Death and Resurrection, become the key which opens the door to Heaven for us, making a Way for us to be re-born, re-energized, receive new eternal, brimming-over life. We are definitely not key-less entry vehicles. When our lives are at a stand-still, or out of control, the only One who can open our hearts, re-energize us, free us from whatever imprisons us, get us back on the road that leads to eternal life, is Jesus, the Key of David. Praise Him, and never forget Him!