A Holy Monk and Retail Therapy...

The first time I heard the term "retail therapy" I knew we were in deep trouble. I say "we" because I have been, from time to time, as guilty of feeling the rush of buying the next ___ as the next person, only to get home and realize that I really didn't need or want said widget - no matter how good it looked in the store.

What I was after was the rush. It feels good to see something, desire it, and then have the power to claim it as my own, have it put in a bag and drive it home. It really doesn't matter what "it" is. The process of consuming makes us (me) feel powerful, and as North Americans in 2007, we have a lot of power...

Retail therapy is understandable, rampant, unavoidable, and yet also horribly destructive. It causes us to think (even for a moment) that we can solve our own problems, or satisfy our own deepest yearnings.

It's quite fitting that I began to see this more clearly by reading the writings of a Monk from the middle ages. Bernard of Clairvaux knew what it was to yearn for material things. And yet he wrote about such things with such wisdom and grace. I'll leave you with a few of his words from his beautiful work, On Loving God,

(We) want to traverse creation, trying all things one by one, rather than think of coming to Him who is Lord of all. And if our utmost longing were realized, so that we should have all the world for our own, yet without possessing Him who is the Author of all being, then the same law of our desires would make us condemn what we had and restlessly seek Him whom we still lacked, that is, God Himself. Rest is in Him alone. Man knows no peace in the world; but he has no disturbance when he is with God. And so the soul says with confidence, 'Whom have I in heaven but Thee; and there is none upon earth that I desire in comparison of Thee. God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever. It is good for me to hold me fast by God, to put my trust in the Lord God'. Even by this way one would eventually come to God, if only he might have time to test all lesser goods in turn...

Amen.


www.lifesongchristiancommunities.org