This year I feel like Charlie Brown in the Christmas special we all used to watch as those many moons ago. Everything is commercialized. Everything. Even religion and church are commercialized; things that were once held sacred. Their teachings are being exploited for profit. If you don’t believe me, turn on the television on a Sunday morning, and while surfing past the hundreds of infomercials, you’ll see the countless number of holy rollers, claiming their sovereignty.
But in addition to the obnoxiousness we have to endure on television, we encounter it everywhere. Everyone has their hands out, even the billionaires, because a $120 million a year salary just isn’t enough. Look at sports. I like watching sports just as much as the next person. I like football, baseball, and I’m a novice hockey fan. But who the hell is worth $120 million just to play a sport? Now instead of Comiskey Field, it is called U.S. Cellular Field. Jerseys and uniforms are plastered with logos and slogans of sports drinks and warehouse stores. Do you think the old timers, like Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, and Ted Williams cared about how much they earned in a contract, or worried about remembering to thank their sponsors when they won the MVP or Gold Gloves? They were proud to be American heroes, during a time in our country when we were desperately seeking heroes. Spectator sports are an enormous commercial outfit, which rakes in money hand over fist. But for some reason, one league or another are constantly on strike or lockout because of contract negotiations.
However, I’m not just going to single out the athletes. This goes for all of the greedy slobs that make millions every year and still cry out for more. There are the fat oil and automobile bigwigs who can’t get out of their own way. Corrupt politicians with their back-alley deals, costing the consumers and the tax payers billions of dollars to satiate their gluttonous appetites. And this just doesn’t happen in our own country, but all over the world.
How did I get onto this subject, you ask? While I was in England, I visited the Holy Tor, and wanted to visit the Chalice Well. The legend of the Chalice Well begins when Joseph of Arimathea, who after the crucifixion of Christ, took the cup from the last supper and collected the blood of Christ as he hung on the cross. In his later years, Joseph travelled to Britannia to settle with the monks who sought sanctuary in the peaceful hills of Somerset. He hid the chalice and the blood within a sacred well guarded by the Druid sisters. Both Druid and Christian beheld Joseph as a brother and friend, and he died in their company many years later at the foot of the Holy Tor. The Chalice well still remains, where today many people believe that its waters hold healing properties, blessed by the Mother and blessed by Jesus Christ. Now, in order to visit this holy place, you must pay admission, or you will not be allowed access. They claim that they use the money to maintain the property. Yet, the well has been there for at least 2500 years. It’s been fine all that time without a maintenance crew, but now suddenly it needs one. Even though I ached to see it and to touch its waters, I refused to be a part of the commercialism of that holy place. My own little personal protest, I guess.
