Friday, November 02, 2007

Deck The Halls...?! - More Like Deck The Customers!!!

Phew.

The weather is getting colder, the nights are drawing in, old ladies are hardly seen after 5 pm out on the streets, and a horrible dehumanising illness has gripped the general public, turning every man, woman, and child into a zombified, grasping, egotistical version of themselves...

That's right, it's nearly Christmas.

Speaking as a person who works in retail, I utterly utterly detest this time of year. It marks the greatest event this world has ever seen, the height and culmination of all of human history and longing, and it brings out the worst in us; the worst kind of selfishness and greed. I just don't get it. How can something so good be turned into something so bad?!

Before some of you say "ah he's talking about the blind unbelievers", actually I'm not.

The longer I work in a Christian Bookshop, the more I have to rely on God's strength and goodness to help me escape cynicism. Every year I see people who claim they follow God, and who I'm sure earlier in the week have been praising God, and yet using that same breath, use it to moan because somethings not exactly the way they want it to be, or the wrong colour, or not enough choice. In the same minute that a child is orphaned by Aids, or a single mother struggles to find food to feed her children, or a Pastor prays to God for the money to come from somewhere, anywhere so his village can have clean water for once; in that same moment, these people moan, and consume, consume, endlessly consuming.

Yeh I know I'm part of the problem, because I create the market and the demand for some of this stuff, part of which is, if I'm brutally honest, just kitsch disguised as Christian product.

And yet...

What i think of kitsch can be used to encourage someone, I know that, I've seen it happen. But something satill niggles at the back of my mind amidst all our back-slapping and egotistical self-encouragement. Are we missing something? Are we so comfortable with our lives that we've forgotten what it is to suffer? Are we so wrapped up in having "stuff" that we've forgotten who gave it us in the first place, and where it came from?!

The good news of the coming of Jesus I celebrate, I dance with joy at in my heart. My eyes well up when I realise that the Kingdom is now finally here, on earth, in Him. This festival of consumerism, this excuse to forget others, this small reason for hedonism doesn't match what i read in the Bible. This "christmas" I don't recognize at all anymore.

I know, I know I'm being harsh. But am I?

What does it mean for me, here and now in November 2007 that Jesus came? Does it change me, invigorate me, cause me to feel others pain, long to meet their needs, long to show them a God who loves them who lives in my flesh and bones?

I don't know, I just don't know.

9 comments:

  1. Merry Christmas Mr. Scrooge r!!!! :) Merry Christmas you old building and loan!!!!!! :)

    I can understand and sympathize. I never worked in a store at Christmas, but I have worked retail. :s And I do hate cheesy-one-size-fits-all-buy-this-cutsie-Christmas-thing-junk as well. It is way too commercialized, and people get all hyped up and spend way too much money.

    But at the same time ...
    I LOVE CHRISTMAS. :D

    And I think it can be a joyful holiday in which people show their love for God and for each other.

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  2. PS I like the new profile picture and the caption. Very nice.

    I miss you.

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  3. You do know that after you and Margo become one, you'll have to start celebrating Thanksgiving. Right?

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  4. That's what he says but I don't know if it's mandatory ... hmmmmm. Have to think on that!!

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  5. yeah i presumed that mdmh!!

    (besides I don't mind, I LOVE turkey...) :p

    :D

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  6. agrees with margo, i have had some customers in retail at christmas where things get to much ,but i do love christmas.........i think it very commercialised now and i love tradition......hopefully one day i will get to meet the lovely john and megan :)

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  7. NOTE from the Blog Police:
    You have not blogged in over a week.

    In accordance with blog law you have 2 days to blog before we arrest you.

    :D

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  8. You are under arrest. Go to jail--go dirrectly to jail. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.

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  9. You have no probation privlidges due to refusing to sign your summons, and refusing to submit to arrest or detention.

    $2,000 fine, 90-day jail sentence.

    Am going to have to speak to David & Pete about doing a better job of patrolling their neck of the woods. You blog bandits are thick as thieves these days ...

    BLOG!!!!!!!!!!!!

    :D

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