Nick Baines: Black Friday should be ‘Buy Nothing Day’

I like the idea of ‘Buy Nothing Day’, not because I’m one of those miserable people who damn consumerism in a script written on an iPad while sitting in a warm room on comfortable furniture with music playing on the stereo and my smart phone buzzing. Every time I hear John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ – usually being highlighted for its encouragement to imagine no religion – I wonder how he ever got away with “imagine no possessions” written on a grand piano in an exclusive Central Park apartment.

Well, ‘Buy Nothing Friday’ is a reaction to what has become known as ‘Black Friday’ – a day of mass consumerism rooted in encouragement to greed as opposed to ‘Good Friday’ which roots us in self-denial and loss rather than self-fulfilment at all costs. Black Friday is a transatlantic import that many people hoped would die the death of British good taste and a sense of proportion; but, it seems to have taken hold in a culture whose consumerist monster can never be over-fed.

Well, apart from the obvious observation that for many of our poorest people Black Friday will come and go like Thirsty Thursday or Sad Sunday, we do seem to fall prey all too easily to the advertisers’ siren seduction – that more stuff will make our lives more complete. We are more than the stuff we have. Shopping doesn’t make us more human.

But, if I was going to indulge today, there’s only one thing I would go for: Adele’s long-awaited new album 25. I admire her for not allowing it to be dribbled out on music apps, and insisting on holding to the integrity of the album in the mode of its release.

But, the real reason is that her music doesn’t just entertain – it stirs the soul and evokes some very human experiences.

Her last album gave a voice to the strangled emotions of love and loss and regret and wounding. She not only experienced “losing in love”, but lived with the pain of it. No cheap resolutions, no easy pretence that being dumped puts an end to love. And in her poetry she reminded me of the Psalmists of old: owning up to the agonies and fragilities of human experience – not something you necessarily get from buying a bigger telly or more clothes.

Like those Psalmists, we have to learn to live with what is actually happening in us and to us, and not simply try to wish it (or buy it) away. I guess whether we indulge in Black Friday or abstain on Buy Nothing Friday, there’s something about Adele’s lingering expressions of grief and joy that could still make it quite a good Friday.

Nick Baines is the Bishop of Leeds. This is the text of his Thought for the Day address on Radio Four’s Today programme.