They say America is a great melting pot, but on a local level it’s Walmart. There is no place where every walk of life, every occupation, every ideology or religion, every fashion choice, every body type or disability, can be seen and shared, at least on the surface level. But what is more amazing is this: all of these people, mingling and bumping carts into one another, shop in relative peace. (Ok, so occasionally there’s a police car outside, but I’ve seen it at Target or Costco, too…just not as often.) Perhaps this general peacefulness is because everyone in the store is focused on getting what they want and then planning on promptly leaving. As long as no one pokes a thorn in the side of our consumerism, apparently we really can get along.
For as long as I can remember, Walmart has been slammed as the angel of small-business death. Walmart holds a unique place of anger in many hearts on both the right and left sides of American politics. I’ve even heard one hyperbolic person say they would rather walk over hot coals than enter a Walmart store.
We really enjoy arguing, especially about politics, economics, and religion, but even things like retail stores. There was an old saying “Arguing with an engineer is a lot like wrestling in the mud with a pig. After a few hours, you realize the pig likes it.” To that point, about ten years ago, I sat in a meeting room for an entire week of product design listening, and occasionally contributing, to a battle between front-end web engineers over which javascript library we should select for use in our product. Yes, an entire week of arguing about a part of a product that customers would neither see nor care about.
But no matter whether you love it, hate it, or just secretly go to Walmart on vacation when you need something and think you won’t be seen, Walmart is the only place on earth where you can get a fishing pole, frozen fish, a fish piñata, and a pet fish, all while getting the brakes fixed on your fishing boat.
From my years of listening to disdain for Walmart, the problem for many consumers is not the global supply chain or the treatment of workers or the environmental impact. The real issue shoppers have with Walmart is that they don’t want to mingle with “the people” who shop there. There is a subtle implication toward something awful when a voice laments, “I had to go to Walmart,” as if they just used a port-a-potty on the third day of a rock music festival.
The phrase, “people of Walmart,” is a modern wink between folks that hints at the dregs of society, bordering on a modern version of Biblical uncleanliness. The “people of Walmart” in modern America is analogous to the “lepers of Molokai” in 19th century Hawaii. This superiority complex happens not only among my more educated and wealthy friends, it is also expressed among my blue collar friends. I’ve heard the sentiment from various ethnicities and races. There doesn’t seem to be a single “group” of people that have this condescending feeling about Walmart. I cannot discern who will hold the sentiment. The disgust for Walmart transcends our usual tribes, so I can never tell who will start to show symptoms of illness when the word Walmart comes up in conversation.
In any case, I come neither to bury Walmart nor to praise it, but mostly stand in observation of it as the modern marketplace, like the agora of classic Athens but with light-speed logistics, rock bottom prices, and no coupons needed.
Aside from the military, a hospital emergency room, and maybe a waterpark on a hot summer day, there is no place of greater diversity slammed together and in constant interaction than at your average Walmart. College campuses and corporate America are the two least diverse environments in America that I have been a part of, despite their constant trumpeting to claim that prize. In my university and corporate travels over the past 25 years, I have yet to see a hillbilly wielding a dry-erase marker in front of a whiteboard or a man with gold teeth refining his powerpoint presentation. However, I have seen both of these people at Walmart. Real diversity is where you have every class, every race, every religion, every level of education, every disability, every propensity, and every shape of human being imaginable pressed into one place.
Walmart teases out our prejudices. I would go into Walmart and see someone and shake my head. I would comment: “Look at that guy…what a mess. What an absolute mess.” Perhaps you know what I’m referring to. I suspect you do. There are websites dedicated to the people that I’m referring to, like www.peopleofwalmart.com, which I’m not even going to hyperlink because while the site is funny, it’s mainly for sophomores in high school, especially the daily “Feature Creature.”
I realize that comedy can be mean, as there are various ways to get a laugh, such as thwarting expectations, shocking the sensibilities, or good old fashioned body humor that we humans have perfected over thousands of years. And I’m not going to pretend I don’t laugh at those things. As I’ve said before, don’t let this blog/podcast fool you - I am flawed in more ways than one. Yes, I laugh at body humor. For instance, have you seen the trilogy of movies known as Shrek, Shrek 2, and Shrek the Third? I enjoyed those movies. But those movies do not exist without body humor. Here’s a quick summary…Shrek: he’s ugly and overweight. Prince Farquaad: he’s short and dandyish. Prince Charming: He’s a good looking rich prick. The end. Roll credits. That’s the movie. And the movie is hilarious.
People never tire of height and weight and fart jokes because - and this is modern blasphemy to say today - our bodies are funny. There’s just no way around the fact that human bodies make us laugh, and we all know they make us laugh, but some of us today are getting very good at the art of taking offense. But surely even those folks have to stifle a laugh when they see America’s Funniest Videos classic clips of “man getting kicked in the crotch.” To deny that bodies are funny is to deny one of the better parts of our nature, but we are denying it and as a result comedians are declining to book shows at corporations and college campuses, which are, as I’ve mentioned already, the least diverse places in America, as much as they try to tell us otherwise. Consider classic books that use body humor, like Don Quixote and Sancho Panza; it’s the skinny guy and fat guy buddy adventure story. Or A Confederacy of Dunces’ main character, Ignatius Reilly, who is a stream of endless body humor. Or the movie The Princess Bride - it would not even be a movie worth watching without the six fingered man, Andre “the Giant,” the albino hunchback torturer, the old hag with warts, and the many speech impediments the characters have, in particular the priest who mixes up the letters “W” and “R” and “L”.
Unlike books and movies and Shrek, Walmart is of the flesh and brings out the type of superficial judgment that I also like to pretend I don’t make. Why does this happen at Walmart? Because in that store lives the full array of rednecks, hippies, preppies, snobs, slobs, spinsters, bachelors, gangsters, w*****s, studs, duds, broods, dudes, litters, critters, fops, goths, sloths, freaks, geeks, and even some that give me the creeps.
Luckily, I fit right in with many of these groups. I feel right at home. These are my people.
Back in college I read about a morality test, in a marketing class of all places, coined the “TV Test.” The TV Test goes like this: when engaging in an act of questionable ethics, if your actions were being broadcast to the world, like the movie The Truman Show, you should ask yourself this question: would you still perform the act if the world was bearing witness?
This was a fine test for me to consider in 1997, as at that point I didn’t have time for God, but any religious person knows that this test should be called “The God Test,” which requires no studio or camera, since we are always under the oversight of God. The TV Test is a secular test of morality. If you wouldn’t cheat on your partner while being watched on TV, you probably should just skip hitting on the waitress. If you wouldn’t stuff twenty dollars bills in your pocket while running a cash register and being observed on TV, it’s a good idea to put the money into the drawer. Stealing, cheating, getting drunk, lying, acting rude, watching porn - the TV Test is indeed a good test to reveal unchangeable moral rules. (For the record, shopping at Walmart is an act I would do while being filmed on TV, so that’s how I know it’s not really a wrong action, although I would be embarrassed to be seen buying so many sugary snacks.)
The TV Test works well for determining right and wrong. Take these two actions: smoking cigarettes vs. watching pornography. I would be willing to be seen smoking on television. I would not feel my conscience eating at me. On the other hand, watching porn is something I would definitely NOT want to be seen doing. So it’s easy for me to tell which one if these acts is immoral. One is bad for my health, but the other is bad for my soul. But oddly, many people see smoking as a modern sin while watching porn is no longer considered to be wrong at all. Eating sugar for many is a modern sin, but I would eat a whole bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats on NBC’s Today show and not feel ashamed. I wouldn’t be proud of it, but I would not feel my conscience telling me that eating the added grams of sugar is morally wrong. Clearly, if you don’t want to be seen doing something in public, you can be certain that it’s not right. The internet age has attempted to flip various acts from vice into virtue, but the “small voice” within whispers the real answer to us.
The TV Test has its merits, but there’s one problem, a rather large problem. This kind of test relies on external feelings of how you would act if being observed. This goes directly to our need for approval and our sense of honor and shame. What this test lacks is internal motive. The TV Test is all about what others think about you, not what you think about yourself or how you see the world.
(Oh God, not again, here we go…on to the religious stuff...)
Yes, that’s exactly where I’m going.
The problem of the “TV Test” is the underlying motive. Let’s take the example of the temptation to eat grapes in the produce aisle. Doing the right thing is a wonderful thing in itself, since if you know someone is watching, you probably won’t snatch grapes in the store as you slip through the cool and concealing fog of the produce misters. But that decision to do the right thing and not eat the grapes is a change in behavior that comes from fear of being caught, from someone holding up your immoral act and showing it to the world. In other words, it comes from coercion of outside forces. And make no mistake: Walmart and Target will prosecute, as many errant teens have discovered the rule of law in this way. No one wants to be outed in the local police blotter as a grapelifter. But don’t we all want to eat some grapes at the grocery store? But we don’t eat the grapes if there is fear of getting our hand slapped. (Note: Just stay with me here for a minute on the grape metaphor as a surrogate for all temptation. Replace “grapes” with whatever vice you have such as “do drugs” or “steal” or “cheat” or “get drunk” or “gossip” or “have orgies” or “watch porn all day” or “reject your family” or “hate your mother in law” or “flirt with your ex on Snapchat”…you get the point.)
True change in behavior does not come from fear, it comes from inner change, and trust is another word for faith. This comes from a change in the heart. In other words, doing the right thing can be done by a robot that is programmed to act on certain conditions. This is what totalitarian societies strive for by attempting to convert people into robots based on fear: If this, do that. If not this, then proceed to jail. If still not obedient, flog twenty times, then loop back into society. If still low morale, send to re-education camp. Finally, on error, terminate the defective bot.
We program machines to “do the right thing.” But we are not machines. (Well, I take that back. As a former atheist, I did believe that we were just machines, or merely large organisms of randomly selected chemistry lurching about the earth. I’ve since abandoned that.) For those who still gaze with wonder at the universe and accept mysteries beyond nature, even if only from watching Lord of the Rings or believing in the Lucky Charms leprechaun, there is something special about the ghost and the machine.
To not eat the grapes is righteous, truly, as everyone in their heart knows that stealing grapes is wrong. No matter how plump and tender they look, stealing grapes is wrong. Really, the more plump and tender the grocery store grapes appear, the more you need to resist the urge, as the temptation is greater. No one would ever argue against stealing being wrong unless they have completely lost their mind, or they are perhaps starving. The TV Test teases this out. If stealing was ok, we would just do it and not care. But we do care. So external pressure to follow certain rules works for many things, but this is the robotic kind of decision. This is doing right by external pressure to avoid consequences.
However, there’s a second and very different kind of reason to do the right thing that comes from an internal change. This kind of change does not come from external pressure. In fact, it’s not coerced at all, in any way. It is chosen. Yes, you can be “good without God” but there is still something missing, and true change comes from the one thing that fits the God shaped hole in the Big Empty of our heart. (Oh, here it comes…faith stuff…oh, God, please spare my non-religious readers, help them bear this next part as I start to pontificate on the internal change of heart, the metanoia.)
It comes from faith. And it comes from grace.
As usual, I find something in the Catechism that shows me that 2,000 years of thinking about faith has produced some excellent distillations of the problems we humans face.
To be human, man's response to God by faith must be free, and. . . therefore nobody is to be forced to embrace the faith against his will. The act of faith is of its very nature a free act. God calls men to serve him in spirit and in truth. Consequently they are bound to him in conscience, but not coerced. . . Indeed, Christ invited people to faith and conversion, but never coerced them. For he bore witness to the truth but refused to use force to impose it on those who spoke against it. His kingdom. . . grows by the love with which Christ, lifted up on the cross, draws men to himself." (CCC 160)
Forget about the “TV Test.” I have a new test called the “Walmart Test” and you can do this test even without being a Christian, but it’s much easier if you are one. Upon entering the mart, or even before you enter - you can start this test while you are in the parking lot - pin this single idea on your brain’s bulletin board: that every person you see is a child of God, that every person there is important, and that you can see Christ in each person’s face.
There’s a saying I’ve stolen from a guy who signs his emails with “See Christ in others, be Christ for others.” Somehow it’s always those short proverbial sayings that stick the best in my brain and make the most sense. They cut to the chase. This may be because I’m in my forties now, so phrases of eight words or less are necessary.
This includes seeing Christ in the person that would win “most likely to become Hitler” in your mind’s yearbook of societal characters. You probably already know who I’m talking about. You know who it is. How do I know? Because everyone has a scapegoat, an archetypal villain that we brook own own ego against, to affirm to ourselves, “I’m good, that person is bad.” If any behavior smacks of evidence for original sin, it’s that humans seem wired to seek something or someone to hate. We want approval, we want love, and we’re capable of much love, but we also gravitate toward hate all too readily. We need that opposing force to support our own yearning for righteousness and self-love.
Honestly, don’t we seek out anger? Last night I sat down in my chair, quite content for a moment, and then a minute later, I looked at my phone and saw an article, and I clicked on it and then became instantly agitated. And I realized afterward, did I not perform that act myself? Did I not just become angry by own volition? And for what reason other than I was feeling content and happy! I sought out something to irritate me and disrupt the peace.
We seek agitation, and the phone giveth. Oh, it giveth. Why do we want to dislike something? Despite all the love memes we post on Facebook, there is the equal and opposite force pulling us the other direction. One of the most fascinating phenomenons to watch on Facebook is to have a friend that posts a picture of his or her family followed an hour later by a vitriolic partisan article about a lightning rod political topic. Love - hate - love - hate. It’s like they are saying, “Here’s something I love” and later “Here’s something I hate.” The happy and loving posts almost seem to act as counterbalance to claim their image back from the stronger yearning to communicate how angry they are. I hide these people’s feeds because I can’t handle the constant love/hate, not because I don’t like those people, but because I have to deal with my own tendency toward love and hate along with theirs. One at a time people, get in line. I’ve got my own flaws to fight before I can handle yours. This is where the internet’s poison gets nasty for society, because instead of just dealing with our own extremes we get to observe and react to everyone else’s internal monologue too, and frankly, I am not equipped for flaws beyond my own massive problems and insecurities.
This shame/honor culture and love/hate firehose of opinions lives rent-free in our heads, and in many of us has taken up permanent residency with the fusion of social media into our lives. Even before social media, comments to articles on web pages were rife with this extremism toward honor and shame. This is exactly why I don’t have comments enabled on Why Did Peter Sink? Have you ever, in your online life, read the comments of an article or a social media post on social media and felt better? Have you ever moved on from typing and commenting with a good feeling? I have not. Typing online is a good place to use the “TV Test.” Would I type this comment if the world were watching me? Anonymity is a seductive thing online, since it allows our cruelty to go unchecked.
So back to the “Walmart Test.” This test must be done with all shoppers, but especially against those who personify your most vilified group. So whether that person you would like to wish away is a Republican or Democrat, fat or thin, black or white, immigrant or citizen, gay or straight, on welfare or paying cash - you need to do this test on that person. You need to see the dignity of every person.
This is the imago Dei test. Every human being is made in the image and likeness of God, with a soul granted at the beginning of their life. “The notion of the imago Dei is also that which gives each and every human being an equal share of human dignity. And this is the game changer. Catholic Social Doctrine is based principally upon this notion.”
If you do this correctly, going to Walmart may become the greatest experience of your life. You may find yourself spinning around in the pet food section, proclaiming loudly, like John Dryden after reading Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, “Here is God’s Plenty!” This may even be euphoric for you when you look at that Trump supporter or drug user or person on food stamps or that woman with five children or that rich snob and say to them in your head, “This is a child of God. Someone loves this person. This person is valuable and meaningful. Jesus died for that person’s sins just as Jesus died for mine. I am no better than that person. I see Christ in that person’s face and they are a miracle.”
But…whatever you do, don’t hug them. Say hello, or maybe pierce their bubble to start a conversation. Just don’t hug them. That’s how the police car can suddenly appear in front of Walmart.
I say this without being silly or trying to provoke anyone. You must do The Walmart Test stone-sober, not high or drunk, because it’s very easy to feel the whole “I love you, man” mood when you are intoxicated. That’s not really “Seeing Christ in Others,” that’s a false elevation, a vacuous happiness. Drug users often have this “I love you, man” attitude, but that’s not a valid test, because they have already escaped the world in the high of the drug. I remember a person from college that would get stoned and go to the local zoo to look at animals for some kind of zen. That is not what I’m talking about. This is a sober test. A test of internal change, not external change, not to be created by coercion or chemicals. This is a test about choosing to orient your life toward Christ and to see him everywhere.
True change is internal. It requires a turning toward God.
This is the part that I never understood about Christianity for the first thirty-some years of my life. I saw it as mostly rules, as buildings and rituals, as a path to righteousness through actions. That’s not what it’s about at the root. All of those things like rituals and buildings help us stay on track to the true destination. But it’s not only about the laws and the rules. That’s not the main purpose. The primary purpose is to change how you see. The purpose is to make change from the heart which changes your entire vision of the world. For those that think Jesus was a great moral teacher, that’s a key part but not the whole. It’s about sin, forgiveness and acceptance, and number one above all: about seeing the world as Christ saw the world. It’s about entering into the suffering with others, not against them.
Christianity is, above all, a way of seeing. Everything else in Christian life flows from and circles around the transformation of vision. Christians see differently, and that is why their prayer, their worship, their action, their whole way of being in the world have a distinctive accent and flavor. (Centered, p 37)
How else could the martyrs be burned to death while still praying for the one who lit the match? That sounds like drug-induced behavior. For someone about to be killed and still see Christ in the face of the killer, this is such a radical idea that goes against all instinct. Drugs like liquor and politics could never give that much of the “I love you, man” feeling.
What happens is that the faithful sometimes forget to see Christ in others. There are millions of Christians who do see this way, they just don’t make the news. We only hear about the ones who lose the vision and need to get back to the hospital for sinners. When that happens, when someone falls, the media pounces. Non-Christians rejoice when the righteous fall. They see the Pharisee in those Christians that judge others while self-justifying their own behavior with the presumption of salvation. The meek inherit the earth, not the proud, right? But while the media dances on a fallen figure’s grave, what they forget is that in being humbled, the fallen figure usually realizes the mistake and comes to a stronger and more appropriate faith through humility. Having faith is not supposed to be easy, it’s supposed to be hard.
The second part of my stolen saying is to “Be Christ for Others.” This means letting go of the zero-sum game, of needing something for every action you take. You have to let go of the self and the never-ending "wanting” of more. Hasn’t that exhausted you? More money, more recognition, more likes, more house, more car, more sex, more drama. It becomes so repetitive always wanting the next thing, the new shiny toy, the next experience, that it’s like a hamster on a wheel running for no reason.
This letting go means you go into servant mode and wind up receiving more than if you had gotten what you wanted.
Someday I dream I will walk into Walmart and see two people, perhaps a Republican and a Democrat, gripping each others ears with both hands and saying simultaneously, “How did I not see this before?!”
I won’t hold my breath.
The Walmart Test is where you can choose to mock those you feel superior toward, you can choose to disdain your perceived enemies, you can mock them with body humor…or…or…you can choose to see Christ in each person’s face. This is not meant to be easy. It never was meant to be easy. As a Christian you are not even meant to be loved. Jesus even warned us that we will be hated for his sake. If someone hates you, take heart, because you’ve found the perfect subject for your Walmart Test. Can you love the person you hate the most? Better test: can you love the person that hates you the most? Can you pray for your enemy? I bet you can.
“[God] will have us learn to bear the burden of one another’s faults. Nobody is faultless; each has his own burden to bear, without the strength or the wit to carry it by himself; and we have got to support one another, console, help, correct, advise one another, each in his turn.
Meanwhile, there is no better test of a man’s quality than when he cannot have things his own way. The occasions of sin do not overpower us, they only prove our worth.” (from The Imitation of Christ. p 47)
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