Beware of the Amazon god

“Yes! It came!” I exclaimed aloud when I speedily approached my front door.“Wow, that was fast!”

I reached down and scooped up the mysterious package laying on the door mat. The brown cardboard box had a big blue smile on the outside that matched my own. I gave it a shake and it felt a little lighter than I imagined. As usual, I used my car keys to cut through the perfectly centered black and blue tape. I heard the rest of it rip as I pulled open the flaps. 

As I dug through excessive amounts of brown paper filler I was reminded of the Sound of Music, ‘brown paper packages tied up with string’. I began to hum the tune. And there they were, ‘a few of my favorite things!’ It felt like Christmas, as I revelled in the merriment...the rush of gift opening. I just kind of ignored the weird fact that the gift was from myself.

To say that the 'Amazon god' had answered my prayers is a little much and it is also blatant idolatry. I mean of course Amazon is just a very efficient, man-made company that seems to have everything I want: every option, every size, every color. What seems like the benevolence of the Amazon god is just good customer service, right? It's just that Amazon always knows what I need (or more accurately 'want') even before I do. Amazon god makes me feel so special. It seems Amazon knows me better than I know myself? Nah, must be an algorithm, whatever that is.

Oddly enough, the frivolous items which I compulsively bought just happened to be on sale! What a thoughtful, caring god, that Amazon, so preoccupied with my convenience. The ease of purchasing with just one click makes me feel so powerful. The reassuring reminders in my email inbox for every step that my package makes on its journey from the warehouse to my home brings me comfort and I feel appreciated. You see, I have a relationship with Amazon. We have history. Amazon always delivers, literally.

Just to make sure I was still a 'good Catholic' I had to ask myself, ‘Am I in some kind of religious covenant with Amazon? On my end, I offer a pinch of incense to the great Amazon in the form of my credit card access and on their end I am offered the privilege of being accepted into the cult, uh…I mean online shopping club. Can I break away from it? Do I think about it alot? Do I end up on the Amazon website and forget why I went there? Is my Amazon relationship getting me into quarrels with my spouse?

Thankfully, for me the answer is no. But for many other people the Amazon addiction is very real especially those who struggle with mental health. It is so powerful that it could become quasi-idolatrous. Is there a bigger spiritual battle happening here? I think there is.

Let's start with the factory and work conditions of the people who make their products. Amazon specializes in retailing non-union sweatshop-made goods. Almost everything they sell is made in China. Chinese labor standards are ethically questionable at best with some workers amaking $10 to $12 USD per day, often working 10 to 12 hours or more. Due to this worker exploitation and avoiding certain tax laws, Amazons' overhead is much cheaper than anything made in America. When I'm being honest about the reasons I got a good deal it feels kinda dirty. Plus, Amazon adss to the throw-away culture. The quality of the products are poor and designed to become obsolete, trashed and then quickly replaced.

Then there's the Amazon logo. It features the word Amazon with an arrow stretching from the first letter A to the letter Z in the shape of a happy smile. While it appears to be simple and whimsical it is actually loaded with symbolic meaning.

The logo symbolically makes deity-like promises. In effect, it says, ‘Amazon is a source of complete happiness for you from A to Z. We can satisfy your every desire because we have everything you’re looking for from beginning to end’ ?

Jesus made a similar claim when he said, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End” (Rev 22:13). The two Greek letters side by side are common in Christian art and symbolism, The Alpha looks like A and it is the first letter of the alphabet while Omega looks like an upside down horseshoe and it is the last letter of the Greek alphabet. So what ‘a’ and ‘z’ are to the English alphabet, the ‘alpha’ and ‘omega’ are to the Greek alphabet. Jesus said something similar in the gospel of John, “Before Abraham was I Am” (Jn 8:58).

In both cases Christ divinity and eternal nature are claimed by using the name God revealed to Moses, ‘I AM’, signifying that he existed before creation and will exist after it. He is not one being among other beings, but being itself.  When Jesus declares that he is the Alpha and Omega, he is saying that everything was created through him and without him nothing came to be. No one knows us better than Jesus. He knows our thoughts, our sins, our virtues and he permits every breath we take. To make this point he said, “Even the hairs of your head have all been counted. Do not be afraid. You are worth more than many sparrows” (Lk 12:7).

Like the Amazon god's promise, he also wants us to be happy. He gave us the eight ways to be truly happy in the beatitudes. Unlike the Amazon god, Jesus is the source of true, everlasting happiness. When we abide in him, we realize that the compulsion to buy things from Amazon or other retailers is actually the pursuit of a misplaced desire for something that is ultimately good. We want something to fill a hole within. The problem is we only have control over finite things and the size of the hole is infinite. We fill the hole and we get a temporary high as we open our ‘gift’ but then a kind of panic sets in when after the good feelings have worn off yet we are no less full of desire. We are tempted to buy more and more.

This is the moment we have to make a choice.

Either keep filling up our internal, spiritual hole with meaningless, temporary junk made in China or find something (Someone) that fits. The Saints were like addicts too. Their whole life was all about the pursuit of happiness through one thing. The difference is for them that one thing was no thing at all but the one true God. They knew who they thirsted for. “As the deer pants for the water brooks, So my soul pants for You, God” (Psalm 42).

The Saints would not ever need an Amazon account. Their personal relationship and sacramental covenant with God was enough to satisfy their innate desire. Like all of us, they hungered and had a deep thirst for God. The good God answered in a poetical and ironic way. He came to them, as he does to us, as food and drink in the Holy Eucharist. 

"While we are searching far and wide in this world for something to satisfy our hunger, God is waiting to feed us the one thing that truly satisfies: Himself" ('33 Days to Eucharistic Glory"). 

In this age of consumerism, if I want a tangible ‘thing’ to make me happy, our Lord has made his presence real in the edible wafer that we Catholics call a consecrated Host. Instead of giving in to the impulse of clicking 'buy' from the deceptive false god, I can spend more time with the real incarnational God in Eucharistic Adoration. 

My advice to all the Amazon Addicts out there...Because Jesus is infinitely better than finite packages tied up with string, let's let Eucharistic Adoration become our favorite thing.