No Advent in Retail

I just got a call from Barnes and Noble—I was supposed to work 8:45 – 4 today, but they’ve called me off due to lack of sales this week (and it didn’t help that the mall was closed on Wednesday along with most of the rest of the city due to the blizzard—which, btw, for those of you in West Michigan facebook updating that it’s much ado about nothing, it was not that here in Madison—we got a lot of snow and it is very cold—and yesterday my total commute time of 40 minutes—round trip—was a whopping THREE HOURS!!!). Back to BN—this call is like grace since I’ve been busy juggling orientation at two hospitals, starting back with the taxman, and the BN gig—I can clean, go to the gym, wrap presents, grocery shop (Tom’s been the grocery man for the last two weeks), and try to hunt down a lost extra computer battery in our storage unit (I think I may have had too much coffee this morning, you think? whatev). And while it’s grace, it’s also a big reminder that I’m spending Christmas oriented around retail.

BLECH!

For all my soap-boxing about how it is NOT Christmas now—it is Advent—a time of waiting and reflection and withholding from celebrating—until Christmas-tide actually begins on December 25 and then last twelve days AFTER that until Epiphany (traditional celebration of the arrival of the wise men), I’m working in retail. We begin our shifts with the doom and gloom of how sales are down: press those gift cards—don’t forget about memberships—upsell with the book drive. And I’m cool about it—I happen to be better at sales than I ever thought I would be, and my personality intuition serves me well for figuring out who might buy into what. But it’s like I have to set aside a whole principled part of me. Well, not the whole part—I mean, I’m selling BOOKS, which I love. And I’m upselling by getting people to donate books to children in foster care. And I do love BN, all things considered, so it’s not as bad as it could be. But still….

I’m also scheduled every Sunday morning early enough that I’ve only been able to attend our beloved Westminster Pres one Sunday in all of Advent, and I’m missing the kids program and caroling and I’ll just barely be able to make it to the Christmas eve service after working all day.

All of this wraps together under some sort of umbrella of Christmas/Advent spirituality, and Barnes and Noble gets the big zero on stars; church gets four.

Church should get five, right? Nope. Because I also remember how good Christ-followers overschedule themselves to death in Advent so that by the time Christmas finally arrives, the very next day they are taking down the tree and ending all the celebrating. What happened to being in the world not of the world? And arguments like “Why don’t we sing Christmas carols in worship during Advent?!” and “I want red poinsettias this year even though it’s a white poinsettia year!” can also dampen the old spirituality at least one star.

Well, I’ve preached enough for one day. Amen. Let us pray. And Advent blessings to you all!