An Innocent Trip to the Mall

     I needed an eye exam and new eyeglasses this week, and so my insurance pointed me in the direction of Stone Briar Mall in Frisco.
     No problems, right?
     But driving around the mall, the confusion started. How do I access this monster? The Food Court, Macy’s, Dick’s Sporting Goods, JCPenney? Is there a “neutral” entrance in this place?
     Well, I had my kids with me, so it was a no-brainer that we park and enter at Dick’s so they could show me the wooden baseball bats they want to buy, or the newest Crocs on display, or the latest Under Armour styles.
     I held my ground, but we still had 45 minutes to kill before my 3 o’clock eye appointment. I gave the boys freedom to explore Dick’s for a half hour as my daughter and I strolled through the Hollister store, Justice, Build-A-Bear, and the Lego store. My eyes were drawn to the Starbucks stand in the middle of the mall, the shoe store, and I must confess, the Lego store (I would love to dispense a million little plastic blocks into a brown grocery bag and build stuff all day with the kids.)
     Fortunately, we avoided impulse purchases and settled for a few Happy Hour slushes at Sonic in the food court and a few slices of Sbarro pizza.
     I came away pretty much unscathed, but it was not easy!
     What did I learn from this adventure? You can walk into the mall with one clear focus, and leave the store with literally a dozen or more new desires.
     I didn’t know I “needed” a new pair of brown, suede-like Crocs until I saw them at Dick’s.
     I didn’t know my family “needed” Legos to enjoy a family craft project until I walked into the Lego store.
     I didn’t know I “needed” Hilfiger eyeglass frames until I saw that sporty-looking eyeglass model wearing them on the display case advertisements.
     A trip to the mall has a way of exposes our “needs.”
     Valerie Weaver-Zercher, in a 2008 article in The Mennonite magazine, highlights some work by scholar John Haughey on the Greek New Testament word “pleonexia,” which describes what we know as “greed, avarice, or covetousness.”
      In the article, pleonexia is described as “an insatiability for more of what I already experience or have.” The word is used in Luke 12:15, where Christ warns us to “be on your guard against all kinds of greed (pleonexia).”
     The title of her article is a question: “Do You Have Pleonexia?”
     My answer to her question is an undoubted “yes,” which is all the more reason I need to be on guard when I walked through the doors of the Stone Briar Mall, or any mall for that matter.
     Or better yet, maybe I will just find a new place to buy my eyeglasses!