c. 2005 Religion News Service
(UNDATED) An evening at my area’s largest shopping mall left me unsettled. Why the empty stores, sparse crowds and idle clerks? Economic woes, little interest in available merchandise, a growing sense of unease about the world, a shift to the Internet, local issues causing a local blip, waiting for last-minute discounts?
Too soon to tell, of course. A lot can happen in a five-week holiday shopping season. Even when we know the final numbers, we’ll have to figure out what they mean.
What intrigued me was the challenge of even noting a few unsettling signs.
Some see commentary on sparse crowds as disloyal to the Christmas enterprise. We need to cheer on the shoppers, they say. A dim outlook can produce dim outcomes. We all depend on those sales.
Some think it inappropriate for a Christian minister to comment on retail sales and thereby, perhaps, to suggest criticism of current political and business leadership.
Some experience larger crowds at their malls and see contradictory observations as crabbiness, of the Ebenezer Scrooge variety.
People clearly watch retail sales for what they signify, as if knowing the “macro” reality (national sales trends) helps to clarify one’s “micro” reality (sense of well-being). If others feel prosperous, maybe I am prosperous, too. If others are staying home, I don’t feel so badly about staying home myself.
I understand these responses. We want the world around us to be healthy. Sometimes that means being a cheerleader during adversity. An up mood can be contagious; so can a down mood. Joy tends to seek out the company of joy, and sorrow seeks sorrow. When we enjoy a movie, it helps to hear other patrons glowing, too. When we are toiling through grief, we tend to avoid the cheerful.
To a large degree, we derive our personal realities from larger realities. We identify with certain public figures. A celebrity’s divorce becomes our personal agony. A politician’s moods shape our personal moods. We identify with group attitudes. Our desire to be “in step” can discourage us from asking, Is this really a good idea? A hot trend can stir our own enthusiasm.
Christmas shopping, especially, can be a welcome invitation to “leave your worries” and move to “the sunny side of the street.” “Busy sidewalks dressed in holiday style” can bolster one’s confidence in the entire community and, by extension, in oneself, whereas indications of sluggish sales can undercut confidence.
The challenge to the faith community isn’t to keep the up-mood up. Yes, we want to affirm our communities. But our deeper call is to see the non-shoppers, to understand the distress that pervades many families, to imagine what Christmas feels like in homes touched by warfare, to encourage people to make wise decisions. Derivative satisfaction can trickle down only so far. Whatever the macro sales results, times are tough for many.
Our task isn’t as simple as telling the Christmas story one more time. Or being cheerleaders for the local economy. Our task is to wade into the messy micro world, where real people are wrestling with long wish-lists and short funds, where some have more than enough and don’t know what to do except to spend it, where some are asking difficult questions about life and society, where some are simply confused by a season that has such lively music, such grand images of happiness, and such promise of “comfort and joy,” and yet they feel alone, broke, unappreciated, conflicted or sad.
Our work is to step into the lives people are living, even when their stories violate seasonal moods.
MO/PH END RNS
(Tom Ehrich is a writer, consultant and leader of workshops. His book, “Just Wondering, Jesus: 100 Questions People Want to Ask,” was published by Morehouse Publishing. An Episcopal priest, he lives in Durham, N.C. His Web site is http://www.onajourney.org.)
Editors: To obtain a photo of Tom Ehrich, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug. If searching by subject, designate “exact phrase” for best results.
