Vancouver, Canada 7

Hi, again.

This continues our Vancouver, BC series begun a week ago. Join the original premise by scrolling down to the first Vancouver post below...



Messages. We are sending them and receiving them constantly. Sometimes, maybe we should stop to ask if the one other people receive is the one we actually intended to send.

I wonder if the woman waiting for the bus on Robson Street thinks about what message she is sending. What message do you receive? What do you think she wants you to receive?

Ya never know these days. . .

Except when it comes to retail . . . Then there's no question. It's about getting noticed. About being edgy. It's about throwing all constraints to the four winds. "Get thee behind me, Satan, and puuussshhh!"
Push me all the way to the pay station. Push me to use my credit card. Again. And again.

Sometimes the retail messages try to get all philosophical or spritiual on us. Can't actually use a real religion or God, though. Naw, that would be taking sides, ruling some people in and others out. Sorta like we do in our churches. It's better to make up a religion that's sorta non-religious.

So we'll use symbols and icons that were once highly religious. By now, modern people have forgotten that anyway. So re-use will have universal appeal and not offend anyone--if we make it artsy enough. The little turquoise placard in the shop window is in French. It's invoking the "Moon, protectitve force and guardian of humanity and the earth." Cute little face, huh?

But the Roots /Canada sotre has taken it to a new level. They've made feeling good about life, oneself and (presumably) feeling good about buying their stuff very easy. Bite sized. By turning little slogans and affirmations into a pseudo-creed. Kinda sounds like "You shall love and serve and fulfill yourself a whole bunch. After all, no one else and no thing else ever will."

Just wondering, though, where one finds all that love and self-fulfillment? Does it come from work? from wealth? from war?

Huh? From having the right stuff from the right store?

I wonder what message(s) my faith group sends out? Are they as plain to see as . . . as the advertising slogans in the store above?

Shalom,

Pastor Roger