Coffee pots, kettles, and several shades of black
- Image by Majiscup – Drink for Design via Flickr
I happened upon a Christian blog today in which the author was critical of a message on the Starbucks coffee cup he read:
We invite you to listen to your desires and to renew your hope. To see the world not as it is, but as it could be. Go ahead. Wish. It’s what makes the holidays the holidays
Now read his criticism:
Wishing, it says, is “what makes the holidays the holidays.” Try not to see reality, the world as it is. Wish for something else. That’s what the celebration is all about.
Doesn’t that seem sad to you? It does to me. Not bad, not evil, but sad. How does wishing help us to renew hope? Maybe by allowing us to imagine that things don’t have to be this way. Great reforms have been led by men and women who have said, “this is not good, and it can be changed.” These are dreamers, though—not wishers. They live their lives in pursuit of fulfilling those dreams. Wishes are passive. Without a wish-granter, like some lucky leprechaun or fairy godmother, they are poignant reminders that things are not as we would like them to be. Beyond that they do nothing.
My first thought was, “I agree.” 100%. It’s nice to wish for change and hope for the best, but those prepared for reality and willing to effect change through personal sacrifice are the members of society that get it done. Sometimes these are religious people. Sometimes they’re secular or even atheist. I always like it when I find a common ground with a religious person and this blogger clearly is. The title of his blog is Thinking Christian, so perhaps this implies he’s a Christian who thinks. That would be good.
Then it occurred to be, even before I left the paragraph above, that if you replace “wish” for “prayer,” you really haven’t changed the criticism. I don’t mind people who pray. I don’t even mind those that pray for change or pray for good fortune. As long as their prayers aren’t interfering with me time or imposing on me, they can have at it. And, as long as they’re willing to invest their own effort (personal sacrifice) and time to effect change, I can still respect the outcome.
To be fair, the blogger seemed to anticipate my argument above that compares “wishing” to “praying,” but he did a poor job of defending it. But, also to be fair, there’s little one can expect of a religious adherent in the way of defending prayer. The argument is bound to be circular and supernatural and, to date, never grounded in reality. Still, he ends his post with this:
My sadness is for those whose holidays are about what the coffee cup says they are: wishing the world was different. It is a cup that tastes of disappointments and empty hopes. In reality the holiday of Christmas is about God making the world different, full, and bright. It’s about hopes fulfilled and disappointments turned into joy.
The author both criticizes ineffectual wishing the world was different and then appeals to an ineffectual superstition to make the world different. The kettle has thus referred to the pot as blacker than he. Perhaps “Christian” in the blog title was an adjective and not a noun after all.
My “wish” for the holidays: that more people begin to think and rise above superstition. But we cannot just wish for this sort of thing. We must make efforts to spread inquiry and rational thought; reach out to those around us -inspire them to think and engage them in discussion and debate, and, where appropriate, push them into both.
Happy Holidays
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December 23, 2009
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Wishes or Prayers - Thinking Christian - January 15, 2010
[...] posted was titled “Coffee pots, kettles, and several shades of black.” There’s a neat play on words there (the whole thing started with something I had [...]
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