Shopping for Jesus?

By Barbara Kirchoff

It’s a few days after “Black Friday” and some retailers aren’t happy about the lower than expected results. Even wake-up calls provided by retailers starting at 4:00 a.m. and store openings at 5:00 a.m. didn’t seem to help overall. Some of you may be asking what is “Black Friday?” Did the stock market take a plunge and I missed it?  No, the stock market is OK for today, but it did feel the effect of the lukewarm results of Black Friday.  In the retailing world “Black Friday” refers to the day after Thanksgiving when there are wide spread sales and extended shopping hours.  The “Black” in Black Friday refers to “black ink” versus “red ink” or that many retailers hope that the Christmas buying season turns their yearlong deficits into a surplus of profits during that short four-week period. 

 

Since I am into spiritual risk taking these days, let me risk being risk looking like a simpleton because I do not completely understand and hope never to understand the complicated workings of the U.S economy. With that said, let me say that I do not feel sorry for the corporate owners, stockholders and managers that rely on the Christmas buying season to carry their year financially. (I do, however, feel sorry for the retail clerks who are underpaid and overworked and for the workers in the Third World who toil in horrid conditions for pennies an hour to make our toys, sports equipment, clothing and electronics.) This four week buying frenzy between Thanksgiving and Christmas is an artificial phenomenon created by corporate greed to capitalize on religious feelings of good will and charity. Corporations have used to their advantage the need and satisfaction to have more and more “stuff” felt by Christians and non-Christians alike.  The audacity of the phenomenon is that this four-week purchasing marathon is for the expressed purpose of celebrating and honoring the birth of our Lord and Savior who had few possessions and didn’t want anything this world could give him. 

 

Notwithstanding that the celebration of Christmas is not Biblically based and has questionable occult underpinnings, what does this materialistic orgy have to do with the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ? Absolutely nothing – it’s just another example of the melding of the Christian Right with the Business Right. This commercializing of the birth of Christ has been going on for a long time, but this year it seems to have reached a fevered pitch, but it’s not enough to satisfy the short term greed of the US economy. 

 

Realizing that most of us have been involved with the gift buying and gift giving/receiving for many years it is difficult to break from “tradition.”  Don’t despair if you are still caught up in the whole thing. I know I have been trying to extricate myself for several years, but it is slow going. Being aware of the greedy materialism that Christmas has evolved into is the first step and simplification of the preparations along with an emphasis on the birth and life of our Lord is the next step.  What is beyond that for me I don’t know yet. Probably an effort to educate my family and friends on the origin of Christmas and the occult meanings for many of the symbols and practices involved.  My attempts to educate and testify will most probably be met with shock in the “liberal” and nominally Christian sphere in which I reside. There will be lots of “bah-humbug” thrown my way and lots of eye rolling. But testify I must, because articulating my faith is the only gift I really have to give.