A holiday footnote

Firmly ensconced behind a thick wall of student drafts needing immediate attention, I've made a point this morning of blocking out most news from the outside world. Thus, I am aware that something horrible is happening in India, but I refuse to think about it until after I've reduced the wall of drafts to a mere speed bump on the highway of my life's journey, just to mix a few incompatible metaphors.

But somehow a little whiff of news came wafting over the walls and I can't quite bring myself to ignore it: a Wal-Mart clerk trampled to death by a horde of impatient Christmas shoppers. What am I supposed to do with this bit of anomalous info?

Images come in all unbeckoned: pilgrims to Mecca and other holy sites trampled to death by passionate worshipers eager to achieve spiritual enlightenment. On the day afterThanksgiving, there is no holier site in America than the big blue box, which makes this clerk's death a sacrifice to our national religion.

But what sort of spiritual experience were the frantic shoppers seeking? Were they so enrapt by the visions of discounts dancing in their heads that they failed to notice the suffering body under their feet? Or is the sacrifice of the clerk a necessary part of the ritual?

And where in the Christmas story do we find the foundation for the traditional dash to the discount store on the day after Thanksgiving? Maybe I've overlooked a footnote exempting Wal-Mart shoppers from the whole "good will toward men" thing. Peace on Earth could be right around the corner, but we'll never notice unless it carries a tag promising "50 percent off!"

I don't have time for this: I need to exercise a little good will toward student drafts instead of obsessing over the enigmas presented by our national obsession with greed, but this news has disturbed my peace. Would someone hit the "rewind" button, please? Let's go back and start this day over, this time without the bombings and tramplings and worshipings of greed.