did i hear that correctly?

Josef Klam, a minister at Chapelwood here in Houston, spent some time during Ash Wednesday talking about how Ash Wednesday could never be commercialized. He said that Christmas was fully taken over by secular commercialism, that the retailers and advertisers had a pretty good grip on Easter, but Ash Wednesday - it was all about depriving yourself, fasting, saying no to things in general.


I agreed with him, but didn't fully believe him about Easter being so worldly. But then I went to Walmart today for some school supplies. The pastels, the Easter eggs, the bunnies, the candy.... what? Why? Do we even think about that stuff when we buy it? I'm not trying to sound judgemental...I like pastels in spring. I like bunnies and tulips and decorating for Easter. I enjoy cadberry eggs as much as the next girl.

But then, tonight, I thought about throwing my TV out the window and moving to a convent. (We can talk more about the convent some other time for different reasons.) Tonight, while entering student data into an awesome/hideous document referred to in TFA as an "internal tracker" I heard a commercial for some new Barbie mermaid DVD. The end of the commercial said this: "Released just in time - the perfect gift for Easter."


Oh, yes, I'm sure that we need gifts for Easter. And if we need gifts for others at Easter, we should definitely buy our children movies about plastic blonde bimbos becoming mermaids for a week. It would help the economy, help our child know we loved them, help improve the reputation of mermaids everywhere.


Seriously? "The perfect gift for Easter!" the perky announcer said. I am pretty sure, at the risk of sounding like a loud preacher with a southern twang and a fish on my belt buckle, that we already have the perfect gift for Easter - the cross. Grace. God sending his blood to die a torturous death so that all people, everywhere and every time, could have a chance to never perish, but have eternal life.


Pretty much the same thing as if someone had bought me a Barbie mermaid DVD in the name of Easter. Ughhhhhh.