Caveat Emptor

I'm reading a book by Dorothy Sayers called _Letters to a Diminished Church_. It's tough going, so I can only read when the kids are asleep, but it's definitely worth the effort. Her main point is that the church is afraid of being boring by preaching it's main doctrines (dogma), but is hurting society and the Christian world by not doing so. She wrote this during WWII, and she's British, but the points are still definitely powerful and personal.

I was most struck by her section on the seven deadly sins, which explained what each of them really are, and how they are affecting modern society. The sin of gula (gluttony) really made me sit up the most and say, "Hey, that's me. That's my whole society." If she could see our world now, she'd be livid. It's interesting because I figured the gluttony section would be the one I could read through and ignore, as I don't like to (can't) gorge myself on food, and I don't drink, smoke etc. It was especially pertinent, though, because of the Christmas season and my spending habits.

I love buying things for people. I absolutely love it. I'm terrible at Christmas because here's my excuse to buy anything and everything. Part of the problem is that "gifts" is my primary love language, if you go in for that kind of thing; but most of the problem is that I have no self-control. Since Aaron has a good job, and spends very little himself, I can go crazy for almost a month before the credit card bill comes in and shocks me (and my poor spouse) back to reality (and further into reality, respectively). We pay it off every month, which is why it seems especially shocking.

Sayers had an excellent section on how the world of industry and production is taking us all for a ride, telling us that we need all these things that we didn't even know existed mere minutes before we saw their advertisement. It really hit me hard, because I am such as sucker for a good ad. Especially all the cute little toys and paraphernalia advertised in those parenting magazines.

This is just my notice to the whole world that I'm going to change. Partly because I hate the fact that someone is taking advantage of my lack of self-control, (which is pride, I suppose, not repentance) but mostly because I really do want to be the best kind of person I can be. So, all this to say, Caveat Venditor.