Black Friday 2011 and the Quest for Contentment

"I am sure glad fewer people were trampled this Black Friday."   Not the quote of choice, thought I, as I dashed and weaved through the mall today.   Usually we measure sales on this day, the official start (after all the pre-pre-pre starts) of the annual Christmas shopping season.  Is it a sign of the times that we measure the success of this day by the absence of fatalities?


The term "Black Friday" was first used around 1966, when describing the sea of Philadelphia pedestrian traffic, between all the shoppers and spectators going to the Army-Navy game.  By 1975, the description of this day took on the alternative meaning of shopkeepers making a profit, or being "in the black."

Black Friday 2010 was deadly, one of the fatalities being a security guard at a New York Walmart,
trampled by crouds teeming in anticipation of their "Wallbusters" sale.  There were at least two fatalities that I heard of this year.  Were there others?  From the Online New York Times tonight:

"And while most malls and stores were packed but relatively calm, in California, a woman pepper-sprayedfellow Wal-Mart shoppers, apparently to keep them from grabbing an Xbox she wanted. Two other Wal-Mart shoppers, in San Leandro, Calif., andMyrtle Beach, S.C., were shot in the stores’ parking lots, while police arrested shoppers who were fighting over products in Wal-Mart stores in Milford, Conn., Rome, N.Y.and Kissimmee, Fla.

One first-time Black Friday shopper, Debra Banks, 48, was jostled by crowds when she entered a Toys “R” Us in New Jersey and missed out on the limited-edition coupon books. She left the store with nothing. “Well, I can’t say this is fun,” she said. “Enlightening, maybe.”"

Compared to the rising Sahara, the famines in Ethiopia and Somalia, millions still recovering from weather events in Japan, much of the Pacific Rim, and Haiti, among other disasters worldwide, and the impending global water shortage, these deaths pale in comparison.  At least 2 people an hour suffer in the West Bank, Egypt, or Tunisia.  However, it is the reason behind these deaths that sickens us - avarice and greed.  (Though, if you think about it, disparities in wealth cause every other famine, war, or shortage there is.)

Dying to get more stuff.  Most around the world are dying because they cannot get access to anything.

When is enough, enough?  Do we really need the newest model, or the most recent upgrade, or the thing itself at all?

Paul, writing to Timothy and the believers in Ephesus, in thanksgiving for gifts to the struggling community in Jerusalem, says: "But godliness with contentment is great gain.  For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it.  But if we have food and clothing, we will content with that."  (1 Timothy 6:6-8).  Contentment is the deep sense that enough is enough, being satisfied that what one has is sufficient to meet the need.   I recall years ago eating with some friends, and that the end of the meal, the woman of the house said without fail, "Well, that's all there is!"  She said it with such a content heart, meaning, "Be satisified with this!"

What does it mean to be satisfied in this day?

Am I the only one who finds this cultural event a bit strange: from Thanksgiving, a quiet day where we give thanks for what we have, we jump into Black Friday, a day when we buy all we can as fast (and now, as early) as we can!?  Thanksgiving was the last holiday left without some kind of full-scale retail angle, but now with the store openings at 11 PM on Thursday....what's next?

But we did have fewer trampling deaths, that's a good sign.