Market Driven Souls

My eighty-four year old grandmother spent an entire day shopping for a single pair of white slacks. She went to about three dozen stores at two different malls, only taking a break for a short nap at midday. Then she got up and continued on looking for a simple very normal pair of white slacks. Again, I emphasize normal white slacks.

She did not find any. And she was very annoyed.

All of the slacks that she found were either low-waisted or capri. If the pants were long legged like she was searching for, then they had about a one inch rise. If the rise happened to actually be at the waist, then the inseam was only about twenty inches long.

Ugh.

I would have been really perturbed, too. At fifty three years younger, I get antsy after only twenty minutes in Rack Room Shoes. And here my grandma spent an entire day in stores. It would have been worth it if she could have at least found what she was looking for. (I feel like singing a certain U2 song…)

But it seemed as if the baker’s dozen of stores my grandma visited didn’t think normal white slacks would appeal to their targeted group and bring in the desired billions in revenues. I didn’t study business or anything, but I’ve been around long enough to know that there are market research groups who help determine what the majority of consumers want and supposedly need and then report this information back to the companies that then go on to make what they think is precisely what consumers want and need. Why take risks when billions of dollars for the pockets of CEO’s are at stake? Better make sure first that this is exactly what will appeal to the masses. Because then they’ll come out in droves and exercise their spending power. The other little people can fend for themselves when they can’t find pants that fit.

So all this got me to thinking about our market driven economy, since both my grandmother and I seem to belong to the little peon group. And people who are left to fend for themselves have to think outside the box a little bit.

My line of thinking went something like this: If practically nothing in this economical wonder of a society gets made and sold without first targeting selected and approved groups so that our economy can flourish, has this perhaps affected our lives at a social level? Do we perhaps market ourselves in the same manner, hoping someone will buy us? Is this a by-product of our market driven society? Maybe it’s trickled down? (Ha! Get it? No?)

Ouch.

Sorry. No, no, it’s not that you didn’t get my joke. I suddenly remembered the attempt I made at popularity in the eighth grade. So I guess I just proved my own point.

In the eighth grade I tried to sell myself to the popular group. I did my research. My market was a group of pretty (or almost pretty) fourteen year olds with really poofy bangs. I’m talking extra poofy here, curled perfectly, each strand sprayed with approximately one third of a can of hairspray. Their clothes came from The Limited or Express. These little turtle neck tops with a split neck and shoulder pads were in that year. As well as acid wash tapered leg jeans.

I tried to sit with them before school. After all, I had the same bangs. I even had two of those turtlenecks. But the popular girls didn’t pick me up. They didn’t buy me and I had to go sit with my old friends again, and we would send the next girl to market. We would take turns trying to sell ourselves to the popular girls, thinking that if one of us got in, then we’d all have our foot in the door.

You know, this happened almost twenty years ago, but looking around, I’m not convinced anything has changed. This market mentality has become so pervasive in our society and we are all just looking for a place where we can belong and feel accepted, like in the eighth grade. And who, like the mass marketers, wants to take a risk at not belonging and appealing to some sort of group? So we pick one, a group that is, or even a sub-culture. We study it. We scrutinize it. And then we, in our market driven souls, become exactly what the masses of that group want. When we have achieved this, we can feel justified, have an identity, and say Hey! Someone bought me!

And our choices are limitless. Some of us want the Deadheads to buy us and some of us the Republicans or Democrats. Some of us have soccer balls on our mini-vans and very large SUVs. Some of us have stickers representing European countries (we have D stickers) or even Hilton Head Island. Some of us have injected an interesting substance into our lips or have even had hair replacement therapy. Some of us followed the Dave Matthews Band in college. Or some of us have become teachers and now speak education lingo (I can say that because I am a teacher and speak education lingo). Some of us wear Hollister and some of us wear Banana Republic. Some of us go to Yoga class and some of us join the gym. Some of us wear all black and some of us wear Birkenstocks. And some of us became Christians.

That’s right. We Christians have our own sub-culture, and we sell ourselves to it all the time, in the hopes that we are then good Christians, even strong Christians. And if the Christian sub-culture wouldn’t want to buy us, where would that leave us? Many of us don’t want to find out, as that would be too risky, so we do what is deemed necessary to gain favor in the eyes of the other Christians.

To start, some of us have fish on the back of our cars. Here in Indiana, we even have In God We Trust license plates (mine is an Environment plate, so I guess I sold myself to the tree-huggers). We read all the right books. We listen to the right music. We wear fun bracelets. We attend the right conferences and workshops, even cruises. We speak the lingo and jargon and throw in the word “just” at the beginning of each sentence in prayer. We have gorgeous Bible covers containing Bibles geared toward our age or gender and are highlighted in all the right places (I can’t even read mine anymore-the whole thing is a glaring pink). We have beautiful plaques on our walls with inspirational quotes. And for more examples, just visit your local Christian bookstore. There you can get all the supplies you need to properly market yourself.

DISCLAIMER:

Let me just say that there is nothing inherently wrong with these things. They’re good and fun and can be an expression of what’s truly going on inside our hearts. And I am not judging anyone for doing or having those things. I do and have them, too, as do my family and friends, whom I love very much. I guess I’m just thinking about the potential to use certain Christian behaviors and products as a measure of securing our approval. (If you would like, you can even go ahead and analyze how I’m trying to market myself by writing this essay. I am subject to my own observations.)

See, I have come to believe that we Christians are not exempt from the market-driven mindset. Because of our desire to be good in the eyes of God, I fear we may even be more susceptible to it, mistaking Christian men’s approval for God’s. And I wonder if we can become too focused on selling ourselves to each other because, well, there’s more of an instant and direct feedback than when we market ourselves solely to Jesus, even though He’s the one who bought us in the first place.

The danger I see in needing such instant gratification to feed our souls and in relying on man’s affirmation instead of God’s is that we replace our relationship with God through these things. We are substituting stuff and behavior for His love and acceptance. We try to get those material objects and our vocabulary to speak truth and love and glow with God’s love. But then we are actually leaving less of a chance for God’s love to exude through us and speak for Himself. And because we market ourselves to our consumers, their opinions drone out God’s voice. We cannot hear Him tell us where love comes from to begin with. And the cycle goes on and on.

The flip side to all of this is obvious and dangerous, as well. We Christians could potentially spend so much time ensuring our own affirmation in our created sub-culture, that we fail to accept anyone who is seemingly not trying as hard as we are. Perhaps the sub-culture that we’ve created is only looking for a certain kind of Christian? And, besides feeling misjudged, where does that leave those Christians who cannot fully subscribe to the sub-culture’s way of living the Christian life? How do the Christians feel who are willing to take the risk of not marketing themselves to the larger group?

Well, I’m guessing that they feel like my grandma did when she couldn’t find her normal white slacks. They also probably feel like I did in the eighth grade, and that could make it hard to find a church home. And that’s not a good thing.

I honestly don’t think that we, as Christians, have time to mess with the market driven force in our society, allowing us to judge and divide. I don’t think that God intended, when He sent His Son to buy us as is, for us to continue to feel inadequate and search for identity, value, and acceptance in each other’s validation. And I’m thinking that He bought us long before we even tried to research our market and advertise our value, because He already knew what we are worth in His Kingdom, which is more than our big words and larger than anything money could ever buy at the Christian bookstore.

I believe that God created us not with market driven souls, but souls that seek Him and are driven by His love. I believe that God created each one of us to find our identity and value in our relationship with Him alone. So let’s challenge the market driven economy’s impact on our social and spiritual lives. Let’s drone out the call of the market. Let’s listen to God’s love speak for itself in us, so we know that we have already been bought and paid for just as we are.

If we do this, I believe that God’s love can, and will, trickle down.

Or maybe even flow.