Victoria's Not So Secret


Revelation 13:17

And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

A buddy and were talking about a myriad of topics and we got in a discussion of how our money votes. Our political system, a participatory democracy, gives us the right to vote for a candidate. Yet, our dollars daily dictate in a very real way what we vote for. I am making it a point these days to eat at independently owner ethnic restaurants. The food is colorful, alive, complex, and beautiful. Not some chicken pulverized and then reconstituted by additives. Waffle House and its ilk are Awful House as far as I am concerned.

As an example, he mentioned that his teen sisters wanted to get some pants from him for Christmas from Victoria's Secret and he declined because of the nature of Victoria's Secret yearly 5 billion dollars in sales empire, online business, and 1,000 stores. It is based on the premise that physical beauty equals worth. This goes far beyond the idea of the objectification of women. It is the message that beauty creates ultimate value. That is no secret. Bad for men, bad for women. What is so secret about women prancing about publicly in lingerie? It is also the destuction of language and meaning.  

So, he told his sisters no. You are not a bright young things.   

I think that is the point of the "Mark of The Beast" in Revelation. Rome branded slaves on the forehead and a man is held captive by what controls him. What John is conveying, actually Christ through him, is that our commercial life decision-making reveals what we value. And, the Roman Empire required a total buy-in and tolerated no other sovereign until it collapsed under the weight of its own sin. Money is a means to some marketplace, much of it idols. We must carefully consider our purchasing in its totality, the effects it sends cascading through our society.

For instance, chain stores like Wal-Mart operate as predators. Much of its goods comes from modern slave states where workers are exploited by political means. And then Wal-Mart now doles out food to those who it has taken captive and removed opportunities for decent employment and advancement.  How freaking generous. Suck the blood out of a community, its assets, its initiative, and then pass out free band-aids. Nice, wonder if such a band-aid staunches the reek of a corporate conscience gone awry?   

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Shake the Dust: Anis Mojgani

Pslam 90:2 "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God." I am not real certain where Anis Mojgani comes from belief-wise. Cats like him tend to be synchrestic spiritually rather than Christ-centered. Yet, this poem captures the spirit of Jesus. What this poem also needs is grace....we shake off sin and mortality and take on Christ and immortality. This is for the fat girls This is for the little brothers For the former prom queen And for the milk crate ball players This is for the school yard wimps And the childhood bullies that tormented them Shake the dust. This is for the benches and the people sitting upon them. This is for the bus drivers driving a million broken hymns And for the men who have to hold down 3 jobs, Simply to hold up their children. For the nighttime schoolers And for the midnight bike riders trying to fly Shake the dust. For the two year olds who cann...
Read more

Thomas Jefferson & Jesus

Image
I was reminded today, by a friend's post on Facebook, that it is Thomas Jefferson's birthday. So, I had a little party on my own of watching two documentaries on him through Netflix Instant. There is much I admire about Jefferson, there is much I dislike. He is polarizing figure. Besides the owning of slaves, the second most odious character flaw was his castration of the New Testament . See my slice of his slicing. Live by the razor, die by the razor. I did learn a cool new word call Amphiboligism which means ambiguity. The arrogance of Jefferson is astounding as if he had a more accurate vantage point of Jesus after 17 centuries than Jesus's own contemporaries and colleagues. In an empirical and scientific sense, he is at a considerable disadvantage in his postulations. When my wife and I visited Monticello on our Honeymoon, the most memorable moment there --besides my downing a can of Pringles all at once (in my own version of the "Pursuit of Happiness" w...
Read more