Today I learned that I could buy a baby Groot Chia for myself or someone else as a gift to celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace or to celebrate any of the other spiritually based Holy days that take place during this month of December. Yes, you too can delight your friends or family by gifting them with a plastic piece of junk that represents all that is wrong with our culture. Not only will you be supporting the mega-movie industry, the entertainment industry that brings us so many things of value (NOT), but you will also be supporting war for oil, shooting peaceful protestors with rubber bullets, oil slicks in pastures, rivers, lakes and oceans, plastic islands in the oceans and so much more to help honor the Spirit of the season.
So what is the Spirit of the season…. Really…… From where I’m sitting it appears to be more about gluttony than a celebration of love, peace and the gifts that God/Spirit/Universe/Allah have given us. Whatever happened to getting together just for the sake of getting together because we appreciate one another? Whatever happened to making a heartfelt gift from home supplies that represent how you really feel about someone? Why are we all stressing about spending more than our bank accounts really support, sending ‘things’ miles away with no time to spare, yelling at retail clerks for not doing, having, being what it is that we ‘think’ we need?
Amazon is making a mint. Walmart is making a mint. Target is making a mint. Kohl’s is making a mint. The homeless are still homeless, the hungry are still hungry, the oil is still spilling, the blood of the warriors is still spilling. And we do it all in the name of whatever highest good we are celebrating this season.
Christmas. The celebration of the birth of the Prince of Peace. I will speak only to Christmas because it is the tradition that I know. Christmas should be celebrated with reverence for the gift that was given in the form of a baby born to bring change to our world. For those who believe – He is the Son of God and the Son of Man. He would be appalled by the way we destroy our planet in order to honor His birth. He would be horrified by the way those who work in the retail and delivery industry must give so much of themselves that they have no time for their own families. He would convict us by pointing out the gluttony as one of the seven deadly sins. Yet, we do this all to honor Him. Jesus wept.
Today I learned that I could buy a Baby Groot Chia to honor the birth of the Prince of Peace. Robin wept.