black friday

brace yourselves

black friday is coming

let me throw in my two cents

i'll join the chorus of voices screaming for us all to abstain from black friday

WHAT ARE WE DOING?!

WHY ARE WE PULLING ALLNIGHTERS (sleep is another topic i want to discuss in the future) OR WAKING UP EARLY OR CAMPING OUT TO FIGHT THOUSANDS OF OTHERS LIKE US JUST TO GET A NEW TV OR A PAIR OF SNEAKERS OR A BARBIE?!?!

i understand acts of service as part of giving in this season that is supposed to be about giving, but participating in black friday is just another (and probably the ultimate) way we give any sense of holiday to corporate america

go ahead and stop whatever you're thinking about how unpatriotic or communist (or both) i am

i'm even going to try to avoid online shopping as the system typically used is just crazy

radiolab did a piece on it and it's mindblowing what those workers have to do, the exploitation of the system

do yourself a favor and spend 20 minutes on this story.

lots of love, 

jo

holiday season

today is all saints day.

it may be the beginning of a "holiday season", but it's certainly not the beginning of christmas.

well, at least, not for those who are christians.

let's get this straight:

christmas, liturgically, begins either at sundown christmas eve or christmas day itself.

and, it then continues until epiphany.

the release of the starbucks holiday cup is a soul-crushing calendar landmark, if you ask me. 

why is this something we anticipate?

what does a coffee cup have to do with celebrating holidays and the incarnation of the christ?

why do we need a multinational corporation to govern our calendars and seasons of life?

two years ago, the starbucks removed "holiday" symbols from their red holiday cups.

and, by "holiday" symbols, i mean things like snowflakes, snowmen, and santa.

people. 

freaked. 

out.

many claimed it was a 'war on christmas'.

because to many a red coffee cup that didn't have snowflakes on it is persecution of jesus christ (and guy who (probably?) didn't ever see snow) and his followers.

i hope we learned a lesson from this:

we should not allow corporations to dictate the seasons of our lives.

we should not allow things like starbucks to dictate our holidays, our days of holy and sacred worship and praise and reflection and learning and growth.

the seasons of our lives and felt and lived through the body of the church.

and, yes, the seasons of the church should part of the seasons of our lives.

just as much as the earth's season our part of our lives and births & deaths are part of our lives.

if we really are christians, we ought to have christian seasons in our lives.

what a better way to observe that than through the liturgical calendar.

so, until advent, i will continue in my after-pentecost time.

bah, humbug!

lots of love,

jo

signs

yesterday, i was riding a bike in the city and was stopped at a crosswalk in the bike lane, with other cyclists.

note: the bike lane is separate from and adjacent to the pedestrian crosswalk.
the light changes and we all start to cross, but there's a lady walking towards me and the crossing cyclists, forcing all the cyclists to a halt. she stopped as well and looked up at us the cyclists like we the ones wronging her, muttering, "what the f#$%?"
as the cyclists, including myself, calmly and politely (honestly! we were calm and polite!) told the lady she's in the bike lane (and going the wrong way), she refuted by pointing out there was no bike painted in this 'crosswalk' and continued to act like she had the right of way, right in mind and right in law.
she eventually walked around us, rather unhappily.

as she ceded passage and i was able to bring my eyes back up to the horizon, i noticed a sign posted on top of  a pole at end of the crosswalk/bike lane, directly in the middle of the two lanes.  the sign clearly indicated bikes on this side using the bike lane, pedestrians on that side using the crosswalk.

i continued on my bike ride and wondered why the lady couldn't look up and see the sign; she only wanted to look down at the path.
instead of looking up and learning from an objective source where she should be, she was looking down and misconstruing a lack of signage or indication as to where it was acceptable for her to be.

i struck me that many of us walk through life in a similar fashion.  we are so concerned of the world in front of us, we never stop to consider any signs from above us.  even worse, this lady created a situation of "me vs. you", a classic dualistic situation where she wanted to emerge as victor. 

i pray we all keep our eyes and hearts open to the world around us and also for signs from above our heads, signs that require discernment, signs that require patience, signs that require humility, signs that require empathy. 

lots of love,

jo