The Parable of Black Friday at Walmart

I believe that there are parables all around us, just waiting for us to learn from.  Jesus Christ taught through parables and when asked why, He said that those who were ready to understand the teaching and wisdom would understand and those who weren't ready would simply think they were being told a story.  I am learning to see the parable in everyday experiences.  I see them more and more.  Perhaps that ability to see is a gift I've been given. 

So this parable started yesterday, Thanksgiving Day.  I didn't really have a desire to go out and do any Black Friday shopping.  At first, I couldn't talk myself into it.  All the excuses, I need to work on Friday, I don't really "have to have" anything that is being advertised, etc.  The reality, I just didn't want to put forth the effort.  With Walmart starting their sale Thursday night, I could certainly do that and there was one item on sale that I would like to pick up for someone.  It would give me an opportunity to just go out and get my shopping started, to at least feel like I was moving into the Christmas season.  So I decided to go.  I formed a plan, just a simple one.  There was only that one item that I was really venturing out for, but while there and waiting for the time when it went on sale, I would brave the isles of toys and shop for the grand kids.  Now you need to understand, if you haven't guessed already, I am not a seasoned Black Friday shopper.  I have only ventured out 3 or 4 times in my life.  Last year I experienced the lines of waiting for that wonderful TV.  I got my ticket, waited for over an hour with many others in line, but knew that once I had my ticket, it was just a matter of waiting and walking up with all the others, nice and orderly, to receive my TV.  So this year was certainly an eye opener.  I started to make my way through the store to where I thought this item would be sold.  I realized I really didn't have a clue where to go and asked a store associate who told me that it would be over in the action isle by the groceries.  Okay the term "action isle" should have been my first clue, but still clueless.  As I got closer, and it was now about 20 minutes before the item was to go on sale, I saw mobs of people in this action isle and could not see what items were stacked up in the isle.  I asked some of the people to only find out that there were numerous items here and to realize that I had no idea how to find my item.  There was a young man who asked me what I was looking for.  He was not a store employee.  He was just a shopper standing with the mobs to get some much wanted items for himself.  I told him and he said, "Just wait here a minute I'll find out where it is".  Did I forget to mention I had a cart full of toys and no one with me to man the cart while I braved the crowd.  This young man came back and said, "It's further down the line", and pointed toward the front of the store.  I thanked him and proceeded, trying to maneuver my cart down to where I needed to be.  It was an impossible task and this young man again stepped forward, grabbed the front of my cart and led the way as he moved people from my path.  At one point I decided to take a detour and just go through a grocery isle then take a less busy isle down and come back over to the action isle.  I thanked him and we parted.  My first attempt at this was unsuccessful.  I wasn't far enough down.  How did I know this?  Because that young man was edging his way down also, to find MY item and motioned to me to go 2 more isles down.  I got to the masses again at just the exact spot.  I still could not see my item, but that young man told me it was right in front of me, I just had to trust him.  I thanked him again and he left.  Now there was about 5 minutes left.  As I said earlier, I had only experienced the nice orderly line with a ticket in my hand before.  I now had a glimpse of my item.  I could see through the mob a very small stack of what I had ventured out for.  Maybe only 25-30 of them.  How incredibly ridiculous was that.  It was becoming ever so clear that this was going to be different than anything I had ever experienced before.  I think the 7ft,  375+ lb tattooed store employee (aka the bouncer) who was pacing up and down between the mob and the row of stacked items was my first really big clue.  He was shouting to everyone to NOT RUSH THE STACKS AND TO LET HIS ASSOCIATES DO THEIR JOB, as they removed the plastic from the stacks.  He was shouting that the police officers, who were armed by the way, would not hesitate to escort anyone out of the store who did not comply.  HOLY COW, WHAT WAS I IN FOR? 

Okay to finish my story, I got my item!  It was total madness for about 45 seconds before I had my item in my hand.  There was a woman there who was watching her cart while her daughter braved the front lines and agreed to watch mine also.  There was also a woman in front of me who, a few minutes later, found me to give me the extra item she grabbed for me, just in case I didn't get mine.  I left the store feeling very accomplished and wanting to blog my experience.  I wanted to write something clever and witty that would make people laugh and say, "Wow, you are a really great writer".  All I could think of was the metaphor of the battle and front lines and such, but that has been written and rewritten.  So I came home and went to bed.

I woke up really early this morning and couldn't sleep.  My parable was made clear.  What did I learn?  Well, first my hesitancy to just go, to just put myself out there in the crowds would have kept me from experiencing this parable.  My clueless state of mind, was soon replaced with anxiety and even a little fear.  There was someone there to help me along the way, even lead me when I didn't know where I was going and couldn't even see the goal.  There was someone there to watch my cart, or my burden, while I ventured on.  In the midst of chaos, I soon realized it was brief and I had my reward in my hand, my own doing.  But just in case I didn't get my reward by myself, there was someone there to do it for me and hand it to me.  All because I put myself in the position to get want I wanted and to receive the prize.  And finally, as I left the store and was pondering how to blog about this experience, and wanting people to ooh and aah over my story, I realized it's okay to need people to build me up.  It's okay to thrive on the positive and it's okay to love my new found writing passion.  So if you enjoy what you read, whether this post or others, don't hesitate to comment on it at the bottom.  I need your positive thoughts to help keep me going some days.  We all need each other to help us through a lousy day, or a lousy life.  We don't know what our efforts or our comments will accomplish, but let's not hold back or keep them to ourselves.  Others need us and we are here to help each other.

The Journey, Part 2

If you haven't read an earlier post of mine, called The Journey (in the menu under September), I suggest you do that before reading this one.  This is a continuation of the journey I'm taking, that journey to find the then and there me.  Well, I'm finding her, little by little, strength by strength.  I would like to report that finding her is bringing much peace into my life.  Experiencing her strength, the strength that is now becoming my own strength in the here and now me is a marvelous thing.  If you're confused about just who the 'then and there me' and also the 'here and now me' are, you didn't go back and read The Journey.  Gotta do it.  So I'm finding her.  Still more to find I'm sure, but no doubt, well on my way.  Something happening here that I want to tell you.  Just when I think I'm getting the hang of this journey to find her, that it's going to be smooth sailing, I discover a road block.  IT, the road block, is so large that IT would stop any further attempts to continue this journey.  I could stop my journey and go back the way I came.  Oh....I don't even like the sound of that, so that is NOT an option at all.  Or I could just stop my journey right here and camp out at IT, content with all I have gained and become, and grateful for the experience.  Hmm, that sounds comfortable.  Even sounds like what I might be doing, just waiting for someone else to come along and break IT down for me, so I can continue on my way.  But something is still missing here.  You see, I can see beyond IT.  I know there are wonderful and glorious things waiting for me further down my path.  I just can't get over IT without going way out of my comfort zone.  What if I have it within my power to conquer IT and move on?  What if the process, in itself, is empowering?  And here's a big question, what if I fear that empowerment that can be gained?  What if that fear is a huge road block in and of itself.  There is a quote from Marianne Williams, who is a spiritual activist and lecturer, that I have read on more that one occasion. 
 
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.  Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.  It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.  We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?  Actually, who are you not to be?  You are a child of God.  Your playing small does not serve the world.  There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.  We are all meant to shine, as children do.  We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.  It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.  And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.  As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

The then and there me wants me to continue.  She wants me to know that I can't gain much more until I do.  She wants me to know that it's time to stop waiting for someone else to conquer this road block and that I have it within my power to do so.  She wants me to stop fearing the power that is not only within me, but within all of us.  I continue to feel her pushing, pulling, prodding me and I am up for the challenge!

Generation After Generation

It was September 24, 2012.  I was in a hospital room and witnessed the birth of my 1st great grandchild, Lila.  I was present for the birth of several of my grandchildren, I have 18 right now.  This day was different.  My oldest grandchild, Andrea, was giving birth.  This was not only the day Andrea became a mom, or the day my son and daughter-in-law became grandparents.  This was the day a new generation was born.  I will explain that there is no 'real blood line' from me to the new little angel born that day.  No genetics binding us together.  But I will also tell you that the day her mother Andrea, and her uncle Brigham, at the age of 4 and 3, came into my life--that is the day I became a grandmother.  No definition or standard supplied by the world will EVER change that!

It was 119 years ago, on the same day, that my Grandma Parker was born.  So here we are now, 6 generations later, and I fit smack dab in the middle, looking both back and forward.  I look back at some of the things my grandma had, and didn't have.  I remember a record player, or rather a phonograph as she called it, in her parlor.  It stood about waist high, a little larger than a filing cabinet.  It had a very large cone shaped speaker coming out of it, and a handle on the side that you had to turn, or wind up to make it play.  I remember, as a young girl playing records on this and dancing in grandma's parlor.  We of course, had a newer and smaller version of the record player at my house.  The sound that came out of that large box was much less than clear, but oh so fun.  I can only imagine how excited she was when she first acquired it, giving her music of her own choosing in her home.  I now can't imagine life without my ipod music at my fingertips anywhere and anytime.  Grandma never had a TV.  She could have had one in later years, but I think it was just a matter of principle with her.  I can remember as a young child getting our 1st color TV.  We did have a black and white before that.  How exciting it was to have the latest and greatest piece of technology in our own living room.  As a child I would come home from school everyday and turn the TV on to watch Star Trek.  Oh yeah, the original with Captain James T. Kirk and Spock and all of them.  The imagination that created that show was so amazing and beyond anything I would have ever comprehended.  That's why they call it science fiction I guess.  The hand held communicating device that flipped open, allowing them to talk to each other without wires connecting the two and at very long distances, was just one of those unimaginable devices to me.  I know that's why I held onto my flip phone for so long in more recent years.  The transporter, well what can I say about the transporter.  I am still amazed by the fax machine, putting a document into a machine, and then wha-la it materializes at the intended destination just as the original.  And remember the Jetsons.  Okay, many of you won't know who the Jetsons were.  They were a cartoon family in the future.  So many fun and interesting speculations of what the future would be like.  Just cartoon science fiction.  To think that you could talk with someone over a phone and actually see them and they would see you, on a screen while talking with each other.  I know, really bizarre!  At least it was then.  I think about these marvelous advances that I have witnessed and now enjoy in my life.  I can remember, when my oldest children were in their teens, standing in the front yard of a friend who was in advertising.  He seemed to be up on some of the newest technology.  He was telling us about this amazing thing we would see in the future, called 'the internet'.  This internet would connect us with people and businesses like we couldn't imagine.  He said there would come a time when we could buy things while sitting in our own living rooms and have them delivered to our homes, even pizza.  Wow, that was such an abstract concept to even think about, and not that long ago.  I don't think I'm trying to express how old I am, because I don't feel that old.  I think what I'm trying to express is how fast technology is advancing.  My 7 year old grandson, Talmage, is in 2nd grade.  The other day he said to his dad, "Do you know what they had before smart boards?"  Never quite knowing what he's going to say next, Chad said, "No, what did they have?"  He answered with a very slow and deliberate, "c-h-a-l-k   b-o-a-r-d-s", making Chad feel very old.  Upon telling me about this, Chad had to explain to me what a smart board is.  If you don't know, ask a kid.  Apparently the schools are using this new technology in place of the much outdated chalk board. 

So what is little Lila going to witness in her life time?  What modern technology do we enjoy now that she will never know, or will consider outdated.  And is there a purpose for all this technology.  Have you ever wondered why in the dark ages, there was really no advancement, centuries of stagnation.  Then in the 1400s, the printing press, which was the catalyst for knowledge to be spread and growth to happen.  The rest is history, one invention after another, at first rather slowly, advancing to what we are seeing now.  Like a snow ball rolling down a steep snow filled slope.  As it gathers more snow, it becomes larger and larger.  As it gets larger, it picks up speed.  As it picks up speed it just gathers more snow faster and faster, bigger and bigger....and so on.  What's it all for?  Is there a purpose, or just chance?  Just co-incidence?  I know I've said this before, but so true---Co-incidence is just God's way of remaining anonymous.  I believe that it all has a purpose.  I believe all this technology at our fingertips and every where around us is part of a very large master plan.  I believe that it is and will be used for good, as well as evil.  I can only hope and pray, as I continually do, that my children, grandchildren, and little Lila's generation will accept all this technology and use it for good in their lives and the lives of their families.  I can only pray.