So, What's Memorial Day About Again?

Writes Colbert I. King in today's Washington Post:

This cannot be what Maj. Gen. John A. Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, had in mind when he officially proclaimed Memorial Day on May 5, 1868. His thought, as best I can tell, was to set aside a day to honor the war dead. The true meaning of Memorial Day, however, has been overcome by door-buster sales, backyard cookouts and the opportunity to get a little extra sleep.

It's sad to note that this is what all of our holidays (a word that originally meant, holy days), sacred and secular, have become.

• Christmas has become a money-making machine.
• Easter is still a marginally-good enough holiday for some retailers to pitch clothing sales in anticipation of its arrival each year.
• Thanksgiving brings big sales to grocers.
• Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, Veterans Day, Presidents Day, Labor Day, and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Birthday all give boosts to the travel and leisure industries.

But it's rare that any of us--and I include myself in this indictment--do anything even remotely related to what the holidays are supposed to be about.

On Presidents Day, George Washington, the greatest political leader in history, is turned into a buffoon with wooden teeth, for example.

And far more significantly, retailers with little regard for Jesus Christ turn the birth and resurrection of the Savior of the world into revenue streams.

I'm not disdaining people making money. Even when Jesus overturned the tables of the moneychangers in the temple, He wasn't condemning people making a living. He was condemning people who were so consumed with making money that they effectively extorted it from the pious. He was condemning wretched excess. “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” He said.

Specific to Memorial Day, one has to ask if soldiers gave their lives at Trenton and Gettysburg so that Wal Mart could sell more radial tires.

Or if Marines hoisted the flag at Iwo Jima and sailors endured the Battle of Midway so that Best Buy could unload more computers.

It's time for some brave and visionary business leader to say, "Because we dare to profit from holidays like Memorial Day...and Christmas, Labor Day, and other holidays, we're going to apply a percentage of what we usually devote to advertising for sales geared to these days--say, 10%--to ad campaigns that will explain their true meanings."

The principle businesses should adopt, I think, is: If we make money from it, we need to respect what it's really about. In the creation of these special ad campaigns about civic holidays, business leaders could consult with historians. For religious ones, theologians from the traditions on which the businesses are trading should be tapped for information.

If this course of action were undertaken in anticipation of next Memorial Day, for example, maybe people, including me, would start to realize that it's more than just a day off.

[Thanks to Jan at TheViewfromHer and Charlie at ThinkChristian for linking to this post!]

[Thanks also to Allens on the Net for linking here.]