Members of Christ and One Another

From the Sounds of Saint Francis (16 Feb. 2017)

“For as in one body we have many members, and all the members do not have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.”  Rom. 12:4-5

About a month ago, we took the plunge and became members—of Costco, that is.  As our boys are growing, we’re seeing skyrocketing cereal and soap consumption.  There happens to be one of those behemoths of a store not far off Allison’s route from the rectory to Catholic University.  I’ll admit to being at least moderately enthusiastic about the project.  That night we were having a dozen churchwardens over for Friday dinner, those half-salmons were excellent for the money.  I do like the samples on the ends of the aisles.  And when you need a bale of paper towels…

But it still seems strange to think of myself as a Costco member. I’m happy to be a customer, maybe even, in time, a loyal customer.  But for me, membership should suggest something more existential or transcendent.  My association with Costco is purely transactional.  I don’t feel that I belong to Costco, that the institution somehow depends on my loyalty.  It’s silly to imagine that the institution would be diminished should I forget to repay my annual fee at the proper time (though I’m sure they will be much more insistent about tracking down that sum than any church stewardship committee I’ve ever known).

For Reflection: "Mass Consumerism Reshapes People."

The ideology and practice of mass consumerism reshapes people—their fundamental visions of who and what they are—not into active citizens but acquisitive consumers.  Society itself is transformed not into a rich network of various sorts of communities and social institutions that together comprise a civil society that promotes human flourishing, but rather a national mega-supermarket of endless products and services where shoppers (having been “empowered” by their incomes) seek human fulfillment through mass consumption.  In such redefined human and societal realities, things like community life, civic participation and political engagement become extraneous, almost meaningless.  They are reduced to places where the rules of the market, wealth distribution and product safety and determined.  In the end there is no such thing as a common wealth, a public square, a common good.  All that exists are income-earning workers, commodity producers, service suppliers, markets, regulation and sites for satiating consumption.”  Christian Smith, et. al., Lost in Transition (2011), 217.