Like many of us, I regret that, driven by various competitive pressures, some retailers in the States have chosen to open their Black Friday sales on Thanksgiving evening.  In many ways, this represented one of the nadirs of capitalism:  doing whatever it takes to make a profit, basing one's motivation solely on whatever opportunity the market will bear.  Such obsession should cause us all to pause and ask ourselves about how we conduct not just ourselves but how we manage our desires.
     Desire is good, yes, and desire drives us to do many great and wonderful things.  Nevertheless, we do well to remember the essence of the moment before us.  It is not about shopping, it's not about supplying our loved ones with as many material goods as we can afford, it's not about draining out bank accounts to throw a lavish party, it's not about diverting every thought into an experience that in most households lasts barely an hour, if that, but rather it is to recognize that, as Jesus put it in Mark 1:15, "The kingdom of God is at hand."
     Though we may cringe at the idea of a kingdom in the largely democratic West, we miss the point if we summarily dismiss Jesus' words.  He is not talking about a kingdom in the sense of knights and castles and physical hegemony but rather a kingdom of the heart, a kingdom that calls us to love, to care, to move ourselves toward inner transformation of mind, body, and soul, and be better citizens of the planet and the greater realities in which it sits.  Jesus' kingdom is not one of arrogance and might, nor one of dogma and exclusivity, but a kingdom of welcome and grace and community, a community rooted in a profound truth:  God, the ultimate and overwhelmingly real beginning and repository of existential meaning, the great and longed for Emmanuel, the Christ, is with us, with us now, tomorrow, next year, and forevermore.
     We live for and live in immeasurably more than ourselves.  I trust that as we go into this Christmas shopping season, we all realize this, realize it in our minds, our bodies, our hearts.  God is real, God is there, God is the resolution of all desire, obsession, and expectation.
     "The kingdom of God is at hand."