Black Friday and a very good Friday
Last Friday was “Black Friday”, when the world goes crazy over shopping. There was a lot of controversy in the days leading up to the event concerning stores opening not at 5 am, not ta 4 am, not even at midnight, but as early as 10 pm the evening of Thanksgiving. This controversy was misguided. The issue should not have been Black Friday “invading” Thanksgiving’s time slot, but Black Friday happening at all… As for me, my experience of Black Friday was different and unexpectedly blessed. What did I do on Black Friday? I went to a funeral. Read on…
I am an incurable news-addict, so I suppose it’s my own fault that I had heartburn before breakfast on Black Friday. I woke up to a story from the Los Angeles Times that many of you probably saw in some form sometime during the weekend:
Matthew Lopez went to the Wal-Mart in Porter Ranch on Thursday night for the Black Friday sale but instead was caught in a pepper-spray attack by a woman who authorities said was “competitive shopping.”
…”People started screaming, pulling and pushing each other, and then the whole area filled up with pepper spray,” [a] Selmar resident said. “I guess what triggered it was people started pulling the plastic off the pallets and then shoving and bombarding the display of games. It started with people pushing and screaming because they were getting shoved onto the boxes.”
Later, during the day I heard an interview on NPR with a guy who “had to” get in line at a Toy Store during his family’s Thanksgiving dinner . “My mother didn’t like it, but I had to do it.” And another with a shopper who admitted that among all of her purchases, there was a total of one – 1! – item that was for someone else. She had bought everything else for herself. A review of the posts of my “friends” on Facebook showed a few expressing dismay over Black Friday, but also a disturbing number who were caught up in the spirit of the thing, and dragging their Facebook friends along for the ride.
Do I object to Black Friday starting at midnight or earlier?
No.
I object to Black Friday happening at all.
You could hardly find a sharper contrast between two events than the differences between Thanksgiving and Black Friday. Thanksgiving is, by definition, a humbling experience. I cannot be thankful without an implicit recognition that there is someone besides myself who is responsible for what I have and even for who I am. Thanksgiving as traditionally practiced is about family, and sharing, and giving and as much as anything, about acknowledging those nonmaterial aspects of life which have no price but have incalculable value.
Black Friday – well, we’ve already seen it, haven’t we? It’s about money. Consumerism. Irrational material acquisition. Greed. Black Friday is, perhaps, the middle class playing the same games that Wall Street bankers play every day.
You could make a pretty good case that this is one “holiday” that Christians should shun with all of the passion available to them.
So what did I do on Black Friday? I went to a funeral. And I found Black Friday turning into a very, very good Friday.
Ralph was an old friend of our family. In fact, he was one of my father-in-law’s best friends, and showed that friendship in his own quiet way in the days leading up to my father-in-law’s own death some ten years ago. Though we had to drive two and a half hours each way on a holiday weekend to attend the service, we felt we owed it to Ralph’s family. After all, Ralph had already done more than this for our own family.
His death was unexpected but not surprising – he was, after all, 86 years old. The service was a comforting tribute to a husband, father, grandfather who by all accounts had lived his life well. There were the usual favorite hymns and Bible readings. But what struck me was the contrast between what we were experiencing inside that church with what I knew was going on in every shopping mall in the country at that very moment.
This man had captured the essence of Thanksgiving in every aspect of his life, and he stood, even in his coffin, as a silent rebuke to all that is Black Friday.
According to the values of the world of Black Friday, Ralph didn’t accomplish much of note. When the history books are written, he won’t get even a footnote. But in the world of Thanksgiving, it’s going to be a different story. Ralph’s eldest son paid tribute in simple eloquence.
“He was quiet. And he was faithful.”
If something needed doing, Ralph was the one who did it.
We were treated to a number of examples of the kinds of little things that Ralph did quietly and faithfully. What sticks in my mind, though, is the church sign. The Pastor told us that the sign in front of the church – you know, the kind with moveable letters that announces a sermon title and maybe a verse of the week – had been updated every week by Ralph for years. No one asked him to do it. He just did it. Every week.
In fact, the words on the sign on the day of his funeral had been placed there by Ralph himself.
“Quiet… and faithful.” What a tribute.
You know the kind of person Ralph was because you know someone like this yourself. People like this represent the triumph of selflessness over selfishness. The victory of humility over arrogance and greed. And the inevitable and glorious transformation of all of our Black Fridays into Good Fridays.
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Tags: black friday, consumerism, linkedin, materialism, Sin
