For the last few weeks I have been participating in the 40 Days of Pastoral Blogging exercise established by my friend Fr. John Peck. He has been giving us ideas on what to blog about but this is the first topic that I am using and I think it is a good one following on Thanksgiving.
Today is Black Friday, a day that many Americans will head to the malls and other places to buy worthless items that they believe will show their loved one just how much they are loved. They will camp out, stand in line, push, shove, and call people names and a whole variety of things we see on the news. In fact it will look like a riot but this one will be okay because it is all about money!
I am not sure why we equate love with material possessions? What is wrong with giving someone a gift that you made with your own hands? Why not give money to charity in the name of someone so that it might help someone less fortunate. Sure it is nice to get gifts and it is nice to witness the joy on a person’s face when they open a gift you purchased for them, but why does it have to be so crazy?
As a culture we are obsessed with things. We need to have the latest iPhone or tablet or video game or whatever. In some ways we act like sheep and we allow others to dictate what we need and what we want. Simplicity is what we should be moving towards and this is something that I need to adopt in my own life.
I often laugh when I think of the days when I first moved into the rectory at the church. I believe it took two trips with my small puck up truck to move me in and now if I was to move I think I would need a large van to move everything I have accumulated. Perhaps it is time to thin down and go through some of what I have and perhaps donate it to charity or just get rid of it. In other words, practice what I preach.
The best gift that we can give to one another is ourselves, to be really present to one another and to care for one another this is not something we can purchase in a store but requires us to move outside of ourselves and just be there for another person.
