Black Friday

All of the stories about Black Friday chaos and violence are really disturbing to me--shoppers using pepper spray on each other, being injured in stampedes, shooting people in parking lots to steal their purchases, and even walking over a man as he died to get at the sale items.


Year after year, I wonder what it is about Black Friday that transforms people into animals, inciting some innate desire for bloodshed if anyone dares to get in the way of their big screen TVs. In recent years, I've developed a staggering disdain for the day after Thanksgiving.


I read all of those news articles shaking my head, quick to judge that I am not like "those people." I went to the beach to walk dogs on Friday. My only purchase this entire week was a bubble milk tea and a bag of peppermint bark. I want neither to upgrade my 3-year old cell phone, nor purchase a device that would be nice, but not necessary for me to function. So naturally, my overwhelming sense of self-righteousness overrides all my other filters, and I feel entitled to shout from the rooftops that hah!--I have once again evaded the allure of sales and discounts and shiny new gadgets and toys, and no! I don't want to hear about what you bought. Yet the frustrating thing about trying to do everything right, everything Godly, is that I can't claim to be better than anyone else. Even my admission of trying to walk the narrow path tells of my deeper desire to acquire material things, a struggle that I face just like everyone else. I donated money to a cause I believe in, for the sole purpose of refraining from purchasing a Kindle. If that's not a self-serving reason, I'm not sure what is.


The world tells us that we need new gadgets and shiny toys to be happy. We all want things and need things, and understandably so. A friend recently reminded me of this verse from Matthew 6: 

"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

And while the point of this blog post isn't to preach,  I hope you'll consider what really matters to you next Thanksgiving, or even right now.