This Is Just Depressing
The Associated Press has a report out indicating that: Crucifixes allegedly made in Chinese sweatshops.
Crucifixes were once made in monasteries, and if you were looking for something special you would buy the ones with olive wood from Israel. You could also buy them from Christian craftspeople at church bazaars in the South. These were articles of faith as much as craft, and they usually came from long family traditions.
Apparently the profit margin is more important and they are made, like most other things, in China, by workers who have no idea what they are working on, only that they must produce so many every day.
You really have to wonder who thought this was a good idea? Did they ever read the story about the people who were required to make bricks without straw by their boss?
8 comments
Made in China along with “Support the Troops” magnets and flags, no doubt.
It might be because people don’t believe in “magick” anymore. All the mystery and wonder available in the world is vacant from their lives. It is a shame though, because the world can be”magickal”. Crucifixes from monasteries have “magick” and those from China are just cheap crap.
Note: “Magic” is the stuff you see on the stage, “Magick” is the real thing.
You still can buy religious articles from monasteries. Most monasteries and convents have a line of something they make and sell to help support themselves and their order. And while they aren’t crucifixes, I bought a number of beautiful olivewood crosses in various forms from an elderly nun on the grounds of the Benedictine convent on the Mount of the Beatitudes by the Sea of Galilee on my first aliyah in 1998.
There is real power in faith, fallenmonk.
Blind faith, however, isn’t the point nor is it very effective, especially if you also ignore your ears and other senses.
(Unless that is the point and you’re meditating, but I mean if you want to interact in the world at all then you have to be conscious of it and that means the real world as it is outwardly perceivable.)
Also, hello to Michael. Boy this could get confusing.
They’ve taken what should be “magickal” things and made them commercial. It’s as bad as the “Native American” objects made in Asia. People aren’t just paying for the object, they are buying into the “magick”.
I am not Catholic, but when I’m buying something for someone who is, I buy from Catholic sources, not the local evangelical sources. I have spent a lot of time in Europe waiting to buy things at various pilgrimage locations for family and friends, as well as buying things in small markets in other areas so I could in good conscience say they were authentic. To find this stuff at major churches is truly depressing.
Even if I don’t believe, I don’t benefit when the belief of others is cheapened in this fashion, without even addressing my personal anger at the labor practices.