Musings about Moon Flowers & Wild Sand

“Advertising is legitimized lying.” _H.G. Wells

Do you know how a calm haven or a freshwater oasis smells?

How about the smell of wild sand (I guess in contrast to “tamed sand”), or champagne toast?

Can you describe to me what a radiant sky smells like or how moonflowers smell?  (I didn’t even know the moon had flowers!)

Apparently the people who sell my wife hand soap do.

Undoubtedly they have hired people with some of the best noses in the entire history of the human race.    

Or…

Is it just marketing?  

You know the answer to that. 

We deal with it every day…marketing…but that’s just it, we don’t always deal with it very well.

How many times have you witnessed people pay more because they were convinced that a label or a brand really mattered when all it was was just clever marketing.

How many times have you witnessed some small matter rise to national importance—often at the price of great human tragedy and loss—all because a few people with an agenda hyped up a mole hill and labeled it a mountain…and people bought it.  

Most “marketing” is about getting a few extra dollars out of us.  But what about the efforts to convince us to compromise our values and priorities and integrity?

What about those who are trying to tell us how to think, vote, believe, and live our lives?

What about those who are trying to tell us what is best for our children, our church, and our country?

It’s one thing for a slick marketer to put a fancy label on a bottle with some smelly soapy water in it and charge extra for it.  But it is another thing for us to passively surrender to the clever marketers who are trying to redefine truth and reshape our culture.      

The ONE THING for today: Don’t be deceived by clever marketing.  Do your own thinking, label things for what they really are and stand by your God-given convictions and values no matter the price. And there’s always a price.

Photo by Kristina Balić on Unsplash