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God clearly wants me to write something about Signs.

Wait. Don't leave. Not signs, as in end-time signs. I'm talking about the kind that Some People like to put in front of churches, along highways or in store windows. I think I'm supposed to write about them because I recently had two "sign encounters" in one day.

The first was when Jason and I drove up University Avenue last weekend. It's a main east-west thoroughfare in our town, so we drive it often. A vacuum cleaner store we pass always has a sign displaying some fundamentalist-sounding religious statement. It typically says something like "Jesus Saves" or "The blood of Jesus can wash you clean."

I always look at it, even though I really don't want to, sort of the way I look at roadkill. It makes me cringe. I don't get why people feel compelled to advertise their beliefs like that, all fire and brimstone, in their place of business, no less. For some reason, there's something extra strange about displaying such proclamations in the window of a <em>vacuum cleaner</em> store. Not that people who vacuum don't need Jesus, but it just strikes me as extra funny.

Anyway, as we drove by this weekend, I noticed the store owner had recently changed the sign to this:

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<strong>"KIRBY BAGS BELTS SHAMPOO" sold here. And oh, by the way, "ONLY JESUS CAN PREVENT ETERNAL FIRES."</strong>

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, or to get a can of spray paint and scrawl "Not all Christians are like that" somewhere nearby. These types of signs <em>think</em> they're pointing to Jesus, but all accounts of Jesus show he lived a life of compassion and love. A sign like this points <em>away</em> from compassion and love.

I can get really worked up about these things, but in that moment, I chose instead to laugh. Jason and I started brainstorming better sign ideas. I mean, really, if the store owner MUST put such signs in his window, at least he could be clever about it.

"How about LIVING WITHOUT JESUS IS LIKE LIVING IN A VACUUM?" I suggested.

"Nice," Jason said. "What about JESUS CAN SUCK UP YOUR SIN? or JESUS CAN SWEEP OUT YOUR SOUL?"

"Yes!" I said. "Or your dust bunnies. And remember, JESUS' VACUUM CLEANER NEVER NEEDS REPLACEMENT BAGS," I added.

Anyway, we had fun with it, and if you have sign ideas, you must share them with the rest of us. But this is not the end of my story about signs. It took a more serious turn, which I will tell you all about tomorrow.