We’re in the middle of a teaching series at church called the Advent Conspiracy.  More than a teaching series, Advent Conspiracy is a different way of viewing the holidays and the overwhelming spending and consumerism that typically overshadows any sort of reference to the birth of Jesus.  Even this week I’ve heard several people respond with panic, dread, and stress at the mention of the coming holiday.  Why would we panic at the coming celebration of the birth of our savior?  Maybe because we can’t see past the lists of parties, purchases, recipes, and stressful gatherings.

Advent Conspiracy dares us to flip our usual holiday routine on its head and do things differently.  Spend less on things we don’t need.  Simplify those elaborate plans.  Give more to other people who have real needs.  We spend $240 billion on shopping at Christmas;  $10 billion would solve the global clean water crisis.  It’s pretty stunning to consider how unbalanced those figures (and our priorities) are.

So, this year at our church, we are taking a special collection each week to split between a local ministry and giving to a clean water initiative called LifeStraw.  Our local ministry involves massive quantities of socks and underwear to give to the Catholic Charities Christmas Store, a place for low income families to find free items for their families at Christmas.  It’s been an adventure to make weekly trips to Walmart to make these purchases.  Check out the photos.