Monday, January 17, 2011

My visit to a foreign land

Today I went out to dinner with my parents and brother and sister-in-law.  But before we went to the restaurant, my SIL had coupons that were about to expire for a local Christian store.  I didn't burst into flames upon crossing the threshold of the store, so I decided to look around a bit and report what I saw.

First of all, let me just say, there is a lot of Christian crap out there.  There were a million books, including Christian weight loss and Sarah Palin's latest.  My dad picked up a copy of George W's book, and I was a very good girl.  I didn't once stick my finger down my throat and make gagging noises, even though I wanted to.

There were CDs and DVDs.  There were wall hangings and statues and tchotchkes of all kinds.  They had cards, which wasn't surprising, but they also had boxes of children's valentines.  They had gift bags with Christ-centered messages on them.  Children's toys.  I spotted a box of Bible Scrabble.  I'm not sure what the difference between that and regular Scrabble is.  Maybe the dirty words don't count, or the "no proper nouns" rule is waved and you get to use names from the Bible, like Habakkuk or Abednego.

What was most odd to me were the items that were trying to ape secular crazes.  Like Faith Bands- a Biblical version of silly bandz.  This dog tag amused me.  It says, "thelight", but the font used makes it look an awful lot like Twilight merchandising.





And this was quite possibly the weirdest item I spotted: 


It's the Solar Powered Praise Flower!  (The ones they sold had words like Love or Hope printed on the base, along with a scripture reference.)  These flowers sit on your desk or windowsill and just sort of... sway.  Bounce.  Cute, but kind of weird.  And other than the reference to the Bible verse, I'm not sure what makes it a Praise Flower as opposed to just a plain old flower.

So, that was my trip to the Christian bookstore.  Nothing caught fire, and I entertained myself by laughing (quietly, I hope) at all the odd things that people will buy if you slap a cross on it.

3 comments:

  1. Holy crap! Not sure what to say, other than, you made some very good observations, and of course I agree with you completely. What restraint!
    My son once grabbed a box of uber christian easter egg decorations in a drug store one time and proceeded to press them to my forehead (he was about 12 at the time). I asked him what the hell he was doing. He said, "I wanted to see if you or the package would burst into flames." Yes, me and my kids are the ones these people fear, lol.
    Praise Flower, nice.
    Julie

    ReplyDelete
  2. The bible says that God will always be praised. If there are no people praising Him, then the "rocks will praise Him". This 'swaying' flower, is Praising our God. Lifting it's leaves towards Heaven and giving due praise to the most High.

    ReplyDelete
  3. you won't catch fire till you hit hell....

    ReplyDelete