IT’S BLACK FRIDAY and one of the biggest days for retail sales of the year. I once went shopping at a mall on Black Friday and pledged to never do it again. The mall was packed with people and elbows, and the parking lot was crazy and outright dangerous.

But this is supposed to be a “faith issues” column, not Deacon Don’s shopping advice column. So, I wondered if anything had been written about the general topic of “spiritual practices for shopping.”

I discovered that Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat write a blog on the topic of Spirituality & Practice and they have a list of 20 spiritual practices to “help you make shopping a richer and deeper experience.”

I read through them and decided, as well-intentioned as the authors were, none of the recommendations could get me back to a mall on Black Friday. I will seek a “richer and deeper spiritual experience” elsewhere.

Speaking of which, how was your Thanksgiving on Thursday? I am still in its glow.

I have to agree with what many surveys report that Thanksgiving is the most popular of all holidays in America.

Reasons given? No gifts to buy. Preparing and eating a meal of family favorites. Letting turkey’s tryptophan do its nap-time magic.

Our family prayed a long-memorized blessing of the food to begin our meal.

Toward the end, we told what we were especially grateful for. Gifts of health or healing and thanks for a family heritage of generosity came up. Our two grandchildren offered their thoughts.

My musical ear worm was the hymn, “Now Thank We All Our God.” I hummed the tenor part to myself as I imagined the other parts sung by choirs and congregations past.

How is it that we are so readily able to move from such a universally near-sacred holiday like Thanksgiving to frenzied shopping within 24 hours?

No, I’m not going to launch into an anti-consumer rant.

Doing some not-so-deep digging, I found that over half of the purchases on Black Friday are for Christmas gifts, and kids’ toys make up much of those sales.

Maybe intentional shopping for loved ones, young and old, can in fact be a spiritual experience if it helps us get out of our self-circles and think of others.

I’ve never been so truly happy (a spiritual thing in its own right?) as when I purchased a great gift at a great price for a person I knew really wanted it or was in special need of it. That person’s joy and smile in opening it was a priceless gift back to me.

Maybe that’s what the Brussats were trying to help all of us do if we were to go to the mall today. A “richer and deeper spiritual experience” just might happen.

Every purchase today can be a spiritual act. If Black Friday can help you get that just-right gift for just the right person and at a great price, go for it! But thank God, too, for that person and thank God that you can. Good shopping!

_________

Issues of Faith is a rotating column by religious leaders on the North Olympic Peninsula. Don Corson is an Ordained Deacon in the Lutheran Church (ELCA) and the winemaker for a local winery. He is also the minister for Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Forks. His email is ccwinemaker@gmail.com