Epiphany & Stuff

In my last post I said I hadn't been planning on blogging until Epiphany, and here Epiphany has come and gone, and I'm only just now getting to it.

I was hoping to have some pictures for this entry, but I forgot to bring my camera on The Journey of Homage, and I have failed at laying ahold of anyone else's. Anyway, the Journey was a big success, in my humble opinion. Despite the fairly significant snowfall we had the night before and into the morning—we had about a dozen people walk and we gave out almost 90 bags total. But the best part was watching the people who came with me go from being terrified of even approaching people, to grinning and learning how to say "Feliz Navidad" and even giving out hugs! I'm proud of all my people.

Then, on the other hand, there's Wal-Mart and H&M. My jaw nearly ended up on my chest when I read an article this morning that outed them for destroying and throwing away clothing that hadn't sold. That's right, they not only threw away perfectly good clothing, but they intentionally destroyed them first so no-one could go through their trash and get something good out of it. This clothing isn't being donated to charitable organizations... why? And the fact that the spokesperson for Wal-Mart "acted surprised" simply does not wash with me. I've been hearing from people I know who work inventory, as well as folk who work retail, that this kind of thing is more commonplace than you and I might think. I sincerely doubt that Wal-Mart employees randomly came up with "let's slash 'em and toss 'em" on their own! At least the spokesperson for H&M had the grace not to "act surprised." Then again, maybe I'm just harder on Wal-Mart because they have a history of doing things like banning gay couples from their stores for not shoplifting. Read that sentence again. It says they were banned for not shoplifting.

*sigh*

But it's a new year! And I'm still convinced that there are more people doing good things in the world than there are folk doing horrid things. So to leave you on a hopeful note, I thought I'd share a word for the new year from one of my favorite authors, Neil Gaiman.



Be good to each other,
Rev. Josh
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