I almost cried as I read the headlines this morning.
"Black Friday Turns Deadly" as a Wal Mart employee was trampled to death by a stampede of shoppers.
"Fatal Shooting Following Toy Store Brawl" , two men fatally shot.
"Wal Mart Shoppers Scuffle Over Last X Box 360" There was actually a video of people piled on top of each other fighting over a game!
That's just the violent side of Black Friday. The amount of money spent yesterday will probably bring tears to my eyes too when those numbers are released.
Thursday, I had Thanksgiving lunch with about 100 people with no homes or a family to share a meal with, who were thankful to share a hot meal with smiling faces.
For so many others around the world it was just another day of hunger, sickness and death.
Meanwhile, many Americans are waking up before the sun to fight traffic, check out lines and sometimes each other to get the best deals on cool new stuff. This year, it cost 3 American lives.
Don't get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with bargain shopping. If you went shopping yesterday, I'm not condemning you for doing so (unless you beat someone up for a sale item), but I think we can all agree that here in America, we have some mixed up priorities and I hope that we as individuals can at least can recognize how blessed we are and be willing to share with others out of our abundance or even sacrifice to do so.
Please consider how you can give more this year than you did last year. Or better yet, just give more today than you did yesterday. Even if it's just a buck, it's a great start.
Thanks!
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2 comments:
Thank you. It is so easy to fall into affluenza. We live very modestly but like Saudi princes compared to most in the world.
I appreciate you and what you are doing.
My son works at WalMart overnight stocking groceries. This is what he said about the dawn of Black Friday:
He came home early from work--which is OK because he's working 7 days straight. He said there was no point in staying because it would be impossible to stock shelves. They spent from 3 am to 5 am guarding pallets of bargain TVs and computers--2 people per pallet. He said the crowds started to form at 12 am. At 4:55 am, people just started grabbing stuff off the pallets and no one could stop them. He said you could hear this 'thwup, thwup' sound as the boxes flew. Philip said the crowd around electronics by 3 am was impenetrable and the whole store was the same by 6 am, so the stockers were leaving. He was puzzled that after the pallets emptied, customers started piling empty shopping carts on the pallets. He saw one pallet stacked 5 high with empty carts. As for the bargains, he understood some of the stuff, but not fights over nightgowns with flashing lights on the front.
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