Fearless Faith

Each year, the commercial success of the holiday season is scrutinized, analyzed and pondered over. Waiting for the numbers to reveal themselves can be a nervous time for economists whose job it is to gently nudge fiscal policy in the most productive directions. It is no easy task. If policy was comprised of logical straightforward formulations, we might all sleep better at night. With apologies to the sociologists among us, it’s not exactly rocket science. And therein lies the rub.

Sociology is a reflection and study of various cultural components and their interactions with one another. It is often regarded as soft science. As models and modeling capabilities improve, however, artificial intelligence will become a greater influence and an ever-modulating variable. Over easy might one day become hard boiled, as soft science goes.

In the meantime, consumer spending numbers remain as indicators of the overall health of the economy. With a vocabulary all its own, one can be easily drawn into the murky world of economics. Deeper analysis spawns considerations such as demand shifts, consumption cycles and residual seasonality in GDP growth. How fun is that?

Luckily, there are other measures to help us understand the import of advent on our lives. Ever higher consumer spending might suggest good and giving hearts, but it also could reflect borrowing inadvisably in order to keep up with the Jones’ — a dangerous precedent in any case. Why not embrace the soft side once more and look for economic indicators of a different nature? How about trying on the notion of reverence? Can we imagine condensing elements of the advent season and discovering reverence at its core? In reverence is found a deep abiding respect for someone or something, identifying value in creation and honoring such presence.

Reverence was at the center of a troubled world when a child was foretold, when shepherds endeavored to not be afraid, when stable doors were flung open and when visitors from afar honored and lauded a young unproven child. Resonance was created in the alignment of the heavens that remains central to the Jesus narrative and reverence can be discovered in the ways we celebrate with family, friends, neighbors, and yes, even strangers. Despite war, reverence can be present in the tiniest kindness. Reverence trumps the machinations of politicos and charlatans, unmasking them with alarming clarity. True reverence is life-sustaining, the kind of profound respect that cannot be easily dismissed by the giver or recipient.

Reverence must also be reserved for oneself. To experience it is to understand it, at least at a nominal level. And yet it can remain elusive, societal corrosion eating away at it and pressing us to respond to challenges in uncertain and unhelpful ways. Reverence for humankind and this vessel we call earth is paramount. As we continue to engage others in hopefully reverent ways, we just might discover it is a two-way street with The Divine. Willful engagement is key to deeply respecting one another. What will our summary of indicators coming out of Advent look like? Was it a successful result? Did our reverence for others surpass last year’s? One can hope.