Oxford street
World class shopping centre
You go from
Corner shop
Outdoor market
Supermarket
Mall
Hypermarket
Shopping centre
Oxford street
The question is why? Swarms of people go there. Half a million strong. It draws more people to it then the Woodstock festival ever did. It’s a festival, a consumer festival.
Walk through the crowds. Half an hour or more to walk from one end to the other. There are more styles of negotiation from a single person who dodges around people to a couple who stick together, break apart, come back together. A family who stick like glue and who’s progress is very slow. I’m sure you can add more to this.
From the top of a bus, you see the swarm of people like the eddies of waves, the great oceanic currents of water passing by each other.
Why? Why do people come to a great shopping centre in their ant like millions to pound the street like herds of wildebeest. Is there more to it then just buying something. As you pass thru the crowds you are in contact with thousands of people all looking for something. You are in a great crowd of people all wanting something. You are among hordes of strangers flocking together like starlings. Birds flock together for display. Do people also flock together also for display. They interlock together skilfully negotiating their passage and their part in the human movement. But not quite fulfilling it, not quite reaching the performance they would, if they co-operated more.
But not to the fullest – you walk not exuberance, the sense of fun, the joy that you see in flocking birds, not in Oxford Street.
There are more people in the streets than in the shops
If all the people in the streets went onto the nearest shop, it would bulge at the seams.
There are some classy stores, but there are also fly-by-nights. People love both.
Where are the spiritual places? Don’t see any. Not a spiritual inclination in anyone.
Humanity is here in all its sin. Here is a template of the Broadway to destruction. Though let’s hope not. Let’s hope God forgives all these people here to buy and sell to join in the shopping mania, the flocking of kind. The flocking of kind to do what? Create displays? No, stuff themselves, yes. Insatiable desires of the human heart are here depicted
There’s no Mexican wave, no dancing in the streets; no attempt to find the elusive human display like starlings. No display of joy for the life we have, no godliness.
Yes, but maybe you can find that pair of jeans you’ve been after, maybe you’ll get that pair of shoes you saw someone wearing. Or maybe buy a great new spangly T-shirt.
I love Oxford street, the experience of being there, it’s fun I suppose, but I do wonder.
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