There’s a great deal of hype about the new iPhone 5. And if we allow it, we can get all worked up in a frenzy and two things can happen. First, the phone that seemed fine yesterday, can now seem utterly pathetic and little better than an old clunker. It has to go. Secondly, greed can ignite, and make us do dumb things like spend a lot of money, and wait on a long line.
Greed, is the insatiable desire for more and we all do well to ask our self when will we be able to say of the things of this world, “It is enough. I have what I need and even some of what I want.”
Just below are two videos that humorously portray how weak and silly our greed can make us. In the first video, people are handed a new iPhone and they think it is the new iPhone 5. It is not, it is actually the 4s. But merely the suggestion that it is the new one, makes them praise it for qualities it does not actually have.
Ah the power of suggestion and a clear illustration of how gullible we are, how weak our minds, how open to mere suggestion, even when the reality before us is blatant testimony against the suggestion. We ought to think about this as we watch T.V.
The second video is from the “get a life” department and pokes fun at the line standers who get in line for hours, even days to buy a product the moment it becomes available. It is one of the stranger phenomena of Western culture and sad testimony to the kind of spell some of us can be under.
Before viewing the videos, consider a few Scriptures:
Death and Destruction are never satisfied, and neither are the eyes of man. (Prov 27:20)
All things are wearisome, more than one can say. The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing. (Eccles 1:8)
Whoever loves money never has money enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income. This too is meaningless. (Eccles 5:10)
There was a man all alone….There was no end to his toil, yet his eyes were not content with his wealth…..This too is meaningless–a miserable business! (Eccles 4:8)
Disclaimer – I like my Apple products. I have an iPhone 4s. But my contract does not renew for 1.5 years. That’s fine. My (now hopelessly out of date, late model clunker, yesterday’s news) works fine. So I say to my soul, “Soul, wait for the beta, or 5.2 or whatever they call it. No iPhone 5 for you.”
Amen Lord. It is enough.
Enjoy these funny videos.
About the impulse of some to acquire more, more, more, piling up our riches and feeling that one never has enough, permit me please another applicable scripture passage (which echoes the lessons above of Ecclesiastes):
Perhaps we can also apply this parable to the previous posting on suffering?
All of this greed, all of this inordinate storing up of wealth is really all in vain. (Eccl 1:2) This very night, our lives may be demanded of us. And we can’t take it with us. All of this conspicuous accumulation of worldly goods, as if this world is the be all and end all, is foolish because this world, this life is NOT the be all and end all of existence. There is something more, something better that awaits us, something more precious and more permanent than all of the shiny gold in the world — to become one with He who is Love.
In like fashion, people who effectively harvest all of their hardships, storing up their sufferings under the delusion that this world is all that there is, under the belief that, as the movie said, this is “as good as it gets,” they too do so in vain. They are foolish they who store up their sufferings because for them too, this very night, their lives may be demanded of them. And then their sufferings will end (at least if they have chosen to embrace the One who takes our sufferings upon Himself) and He will dry their tears and there will be no more death or mourning, weeping or pain.
If you must have a passionate desire for something, make it something that endures, something eternal, not a passionate desire for money or other worldly goods, not a passionate desire for wallowing in suffering and misery in solitude, but a passionate desire for Love, for Truth, for He who is Eternal Life in person and very being. That iPhone, that 100-inch TV, that big house, that fancy car, all that green in your wallet, all of these will one day turn to dust, and all of that cancer pain, that blindness, that poverty, that being treated like a social leper, that loss of loved ones to death, all of these too will also one day turn to dust. Our very bodies will turn to dust — we are dust and unto dust we shall return. All the things of this world, the good, the bad, the happy, the unhappy, will one day pass away. They are all temporary.
So buy stock in the Lord instead, seek a room in His big house, invest your worries and anxieties and sufferings with Him so that He might return to you a bountiful yield of beatitude. And you don’t need that iPhone to call Him to arrange these things. All you need is your heart. All you need is to answer the call that He has already made. And in doing so, in answering, “Hello? Yes, Lord.” we are already on the road to that new and eternal world, if not having one foot in it already.
Dr. Seus does a great job with this in his story about The Sneetches. One group gets yellow stars on their bellies, then the others MUST have them, so the others get theirs removed. The company who is responsible for the “yellow stars” is getting rich from both groups! A classic!
Ya gotta love Dr. Seuss.
Ha, ha, ha. They never will learn. You can’t teach a Sneetch. Or so thought Sylvester McMonkey McBean, the Fix-it-up Chapie, who listening to his voice now in the full video here, sounds an awful like Professor Harold Hill.
Ironically, Dr Suess was an ardent defender of abortion rights. He and his wife had no children, but he wrote beautiful works that appeal to children and childlike adults. We praise his work…..and as the previous person said, ya gotta love Dr Suess. We just don’t like his position about abortion.
I miss the days of land line rotary phones when people couldn’t contact you unless you were home or at another known land line location. The phones were dependable, held up well, were always charged and you could hear them when they rang. People actually communicated to each other simply using verbal conversation. I can’t recall anyone ever losing, misplacing their phone or having it stolen back then. Seems that kids were kids and did normal kid things like physical social activities involving physical social interaction. You could actually go to mass, the movie or a lecture without someones cell phone blaring out some obnoxious personal ring tone.
I have a land-line wired phone connected to an answering machine. I carry an older simple TracFone in my purse, turned off, for emergency use and to call long distance. I have never texted. Thank You, dear Lord, this system works well for me.
Ecclesiastes: 10: [19] “For laughter they make bread, and wine that the living may feast: and all things obey money.”
I am pleased to state that I just turned in my smart phone to my company. Freedom.
Here’s an interesting take on greed: German Catholics refuse to fulfill their obligation of material support for the Church, and Bishops warn that those who don’t pay the “church tax” will be excommunicated
“In the first video, people are handed a new iPhone and they think it is the new iPhone 5. It is not, it is actually the 4s.”
So, the first one’s free but, it turns out to be a trick. What does this remind me of?
Yes, the name of the phone is “apple”
Well, for Pete’s sake if that doesn’t fit.
Allegedly in the Medieval days if one was on church grounds and needed an expletive the acceptable way was to exclaim, in appropriate tone of voice, “For Saint Peter’s sake”
Does the playing of these videos, linked to an article on greed, manifest a lack charity for the people in the videos?
Well they all had to sign disclaimers to have their visage used. it would seem they prefer fame of any sort to looking silly. Also, (honestly) I’ll bet they were hired actors. Finally as to the aspect of the accusation you level against me, I will say, I do not single them out. Greed messes with all of us, it is a cardinal sin. Perhaps also you missed the word “humorous” in the title. Even you Potus. When Jesus spoke of greed, the Apostles wonder who can be saved. There was humility in them and a recognition of the fallen human condition.
Msgr. Pope,
The tagline for the Samsung commercial is so fitting for our faith as Christians, especially as Catholics. The tagline is “The Next Big Thing Is Already Here,” which makes me think of how the long-awaited for Savior has arrived in Jesus Christ and call us everyday to discover the next big thing (His active presence in our lives and a greater fullness of life in Him) through complete self-abandonment to His will. Our search is over, and we have no need for anxiety, because our human desire for the next big thing (a lasting love that provides comfort, hope, and answers to life’s most demanding challenges and questions) is available to us through a relationship with the person of Jesus Christ. We are blessed as Catholics to know that Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist is the most precious example of the next big thing being already here for us to adore and ingest, allowing Him to consume us with the Holy Spirit’s fire of love. The only waiting in line that ever happens is the line to receive Holy Communion, which fortunately does not require camping outside overnight!
I am also reminded of Blessed Pope John Paul II writing in Redemptoris Missio that the Church’s mission “consists essentially in offering people an opportunity not to ‘have more’ but to ‘be more,’ by awakening their consciences through the Gospel.” What a marvelous blessing it is to grow in holiness through the grace of Jesus Christ that compels us to a proper daily response to the Lord’s love and mercy.