That shoe was dumb

This happened yesterday (really; I mean it; it really, really did): Scuffles broke out and police were brought in to quell unrest that nearly turned into riots across the nation Friday following the release of Nike’s new Air Jordan basketball shoes—a retro model of one of the most popular Air Jordans ever made.
The mayhem stretched from Washington state to Georgia and was reminiscent of the violence that broke out 20 years ago in many cities as the shoes became popular targets for thieves. It also had a decidedly Black Friday feel as huge crowds of shoppers overwhelmed stores for a must-have item.
In suburban Seattle, police used pepper spray on about 20 customers who started fighting at the Westfield Southcenter mall. The crowd started gathering at four stores in the mall around midnight and had grown to more than 1,000 people by 4 a.m., when the stores opened, Tukwila Officer Mike Murphy said. He said it started as fighting and pushing among people in line and escalated over the next hour.

Today is, of course, Christmas Eve. We have services at each of our churches and I can't wait to get to them. To see the faces of those who have become friends. To see the faces of the kids as they perform a short play as part of one of the services. To see candles held as Silent Night is sung. To feel the cool, crisp night air as we prepare to receive grand kids to our parsonage home tomorrow for Christmas dinner.

Every time I think the world starts to get it, as the 99 percent protest the notion that the world's wealth shouldn't be held by a mere one percent of the world's population or perhaps more importantly the world's wealth should be willingly given to the poor by the one percent who have been fortunate to accumulate that wealth, this happens. We show we, the one percent, are just as selfish and unwise as anyone could be.

It's a shoe. It's a tablet. It's a Cabbage Patch kid. It's the next techno babble game-playing thingamajig. We risk danger, jail, pepper spray just to say we have that shoe or that tablet or you name it. Black Fridays all.

Today, this wonderful holiday felt around the world I pray, let us prepare to honor and worship our Savior born into flesh so long ago.

Let his blood, also shed so very long ago, wash the selfishness out of our children, our adults, our spouses, our parents. Let us care for those who are less fortunate than ourselves who could have made an entire Christmas out of $180 shoes.

Let us get it, soon.

Merry Christmas, friends, family. I love you with a passion that only Christ could give me.