Peace & Justice 

.These articles by
Deacon Rich & Irene Miska
were printed is a series in the St. Julie Parish bulletin.

5/21/00

 Did you ever wonder ...................
..................... Why you NEED that new car?

Beginning in 1923 with the arrival of Alfred P. Sloan as president of General Motors, the task of marketing new cars differed from Ford's approach, stressing the economy and technical competence of an unchanging Model T, to fostering cyclic dissatisfaction with one's present car, the basis of "turnover buying:" Continued expansion of the mass-production system required turnover buying for, as some recent automobile recessions demonstrated. when too many owners hold on to them cars for too long, the new-car market stagnates.

Sloan's marketing strategy at GM was only the most stoking example of an extraordinary shift in flee nature of advertising after World War 1. While some areas of marketing continued to stress the older "reason why" style-effective and attractive communication of a product's virtues - the new stile tried to program the consumer's emotions, creating a sense of personal inadequacy and discontent us the bases of impulse buying.

Watch our current ads and see how our emotions cause the NEED!! 

(to be continued)

6/4/00

The impact of advertising

The impact of advertising goes far beyond impulse buying. Two frightening implications of the bombardment of advertising and its dominant themes upon American people, their values, and their commitments are described by St. Louis University professor and critic John Kavanaugh. The first process Kavanaugh calls “personification of the commodity.” Using familiar ads from prominent American magazines and television, Kavanaugh depicts the ways in which we Americans are sold products in terms that ascribe to those human characteristics and powers. The advertiser’s product will accompany us on a journey of excitement, “be our friend forever,” or “fulfill our deepest longings for companionship and love.”

How many of us are wearing clothing, drinking beverages, and driving cars, that will win us affection and admiration of others ?

(to be continued)

6/11/00

Last week we discussed that advertising influences us to buy certain items based on human characteristics. Critic John Kavanaugh takes this one step further and proposes that advertising is reflected in our society in other ways also. Possibly we are moved and shaped by this commodity consciousness, we begin to treat other human beings in the same ways we use our products. Our approach may be dominated by a consumerism that will “get what we can out of” a person or relationship and then discard it like an empty beer bottle or cola can. We see this most explicitly in how our society discards the elderly or the disabled worker, no longer a useful producer in the economic marketplace, or how it treats the displaced homemaker or the woman on welfare. It is there, too, in the “inconvenient” pregnancy. Our most serious commitments to one another are also affected. “If this marriage doesn’t work out, I’ll just divorce her,” can be heard from wedding rehearsals to the marriage counselor’s office.

As Christians, if we step back a moment and see what this personification of the commodity in advertising and the commodification of the person have turned the original blessing of creation on its head, snatching stewardship from our hands and subjecting us to our things. Not only are we not owners now, but have we become owned by what we have and what we desire to have ?

(To be continued)

6/25/00

 Compared to the vast majority of the world's population, we in North America are people of tremendous financial advantage. A chart in Ministry of Money lists five categories of wealth, or lack thereof, in the world today.

The first category: "the poorest of the poor" are those with no family, job, housing, health care or even a place to die.

The second category: "ordinary pool" who have limited access to income assistance, housing, food and health care.

The third category: "ordinary wealthy" describes people with access to jobs, housing, food, health care and transportation.

The fourth category: "wealthiest of the wealthy" describes people with more than sufficient income, housing investments, and possessions.

The fifth category: "the ultra wealthy" a term used to describe billionaires.

What category do you find yourself?

Being wealthy is, in fact, a serious responsibility, fraught with great spiritual danger. Jesus said, "What profit is there for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?" (Mark 8:36).

4/16/00

When we are wealthy, we face the danger of serving money rather than God. We face the danger of finding ourselves outside the Kingdom of God. We face the danger of losing our souls. Although this is a danger, most of us are not terrified about it. In fact, we're not even worried about it, even though we should be.

We should have our guard up against the seductive powers that we encounter daily. They are as close as the TV screen - the home shopping networks, the commercials for new cars, new trucks, new sports utility vehicles (SUV's). One commercial uses the headline, "It blurs the line between needs and wants."

The articles in personal-finance magazines and the Internet read: "How to Build a Bigger Nest Egg," "The Good Life Is Closer Than You Think," "Grow Rich!" How do we respond and spend our dine? Jesus did not want us to feel guilty if we are rich. His message was one of repentance, quite different from the message we hear in our secular world.

Being wealthy is, in fact, a serous responsibility, fraught with great spiritual danger. Jesus said, "What profit is there for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?" (Mark 8:36).

4/23/00

Jesus spoke about wealth because He wanted people to be free of its grip on their lives and because He wanted the best for them; tire blessings of life health, well-being, prosperity, the shalom of God lo be enjoyed by everyone.

Tire Gospels offer us the challenge: be on guard against the enticing voices that lure us into wanting more, into thinking drat having more is tire good life.

A suggestion, sit down soon and take a look at what yon have, what you spend your money on, what you save and wiry you arc saving it, and what you share of your resources with people who are less fortunate.

Ask yourself honestly "What does my attitude toward money say about any priorities? What do material possessions I treasure say about where my heart is?"

"For where your treasure is,
There also your heart be"
(Luke 12:34)

The story is told of a woman who had a dream while traveling to India. In the dream she was told to ask a beggar for a gift.

The woman found an old man in the street who reached into his sack at her request and pulled out a diamond bigger than a golf ball. "This is all I have," he said, "so this must be the gift."

Sputtering, die woman asked the beggar if lie knew what he was doing.

"Yes, of course," he said. "I found it in the swamp outside the city."

The woman thanked the beggar for his gift and went to the swamp to meditate until the evening. Then she returned to the beggar and handed him his jewel. "Instead of the diamond," she said, "could you please teach the the wisdom that let me give you this gift?"

May God give us that same insightful wisdom.

Materialism 
by Tim Wilson

Give me money, 
Lots of money, 
Give me riches, 
Is my cry.

Let me have it, 
Let me buy it, 
Oh! I need it, 
Is my cry.

I don't care for anybody, 
`Cause they don't care for me. 
Give me lots of money, 
lots of money, 
Let me have a spending spree.

I have heard religious people, 
Fuddy duddies, everyone. 
"Help each other," they will tell you, 
"Give to the poor what you can my son."

To blazes with that kind of thinking 
I have just one life to live. 
Give me money, lots of money, 
I'll go through it like a sieve.

A house, a car, a boat, a plane. 
All these riches I can gain 
If only I had it, lots of money. 
And never had to bear the pain.

I am doing very well now. 
All my dreams have now come true. 
The things 1 wanted, yes! I have them. 
I have got what is my due.

And yet, I'm very far from happy. 
Something's missing I can see. 
I've everything 1 ever wanted. 
Ah ! Dear God, what can it be?