BLACK FRIDAY IN AMERICA : RECOVERING FROM A RECORD-SETTING RECESSION WHY IS THERE SUCH A FRENZY TO SHOP ?..........

For an astonishing 138 million Americans, the ThanksGiving Day Turkey was hardly cool yesterday, when they turned their sights to the Black Friday Christmas shopping sales frenzy occurring across the country today.  At the three year mark of the worst economic recession since the Great Depression eighty years ago, consumer confidence is gradually increasing with Black Friday sales expected to be up 3% over last year.  The search for bargains is so intense, millions of shoppers nationwide lined up for upwards of three days in parking lots in front of favored stores, in often times very inclement weather, to be at the head of the lines at the doors of stores opening for Black Friday bargain sales last night and in the wee hours of this morning.  Shopping and Christmas sales are a vital part of businesses profit and the good of the economy.  But one of the undeniable lessons of this current worldwide recession is that we cannot continue overspending and living beyond our means, without it all crashing down arouus us.  Christmas shopping within reasonable limits is  good and generous.  But the lengths to which stores and shoppers are carrying Black Friday and the commercialization of Christmas, is at the least  grossly misguided, if not unquestionably dysfunctional.  There are 4 weeks to do the Christmas shopping you can and choose to do.  Why pressurize the doing of something that at its root is about generosity in the Birth of Christ, not the greed of scoring the deepest discounts, or enlarging our profit margins.  I intentionally avoid stores and shopping on Black Friday and the remainder of the ThanksGiving weekend.  What a better, more spiritually and wholistically grounded citizenry, today's 138 million American Black Friday shoppers would be, to show some common sense instead of being driven by such commercial craziness..........Happy ThanksGiving Friday,   Fr.  Troy
.....Regis Philbin and Kelly Ripa took a studio audience poll this morning that found 43% of their audience ignores Black Friday; 33% awake between 3-5 am to Black Friday shop; 16% awake at their regular time; and 8% are undecided.....