One can almost always say we are living in challenging times: when are the times not challenging? Yet these last weeks and months with the papers full of government spending (whether you think the money is being spent in the best way or not), the heartbreaking statistics on home foreclosures and unemployment, and the dwindling figures in many folks’ retirement accounts, I think it is clear that this is a challenging time.

I recently came across Robert J. Wicks’s Riding the Dragon: 10 Lessons for Inner Strength in Challenging Times. It’s a small book, about 150 5×7 pages, by a psychologist on the faculty of Loyola-Maryland’s graduate program in pastoral counseling who maintains a practice specializing in helping helpers—therapists, pastors, relief workers, all kinds of people who spend their time reaching out to those in need and sometimes need a wise listening ear themselves.

His opening pages include a quote from David Brazier to the effect that many therapists will oblige people who want help driving our dragons back into their caves, whereas Zen offers dragon-riding lessons, and a line from Shunryu Suzuki saying that one must be the dragon and then will not be afraid of the dragon.

Riding or being the dragon involves entering into one’s own dark places, illuminating them with the light of truth, and facing them honestly. It’s hard work, but work which allows a person to return to the bright gifts of life without being afraid of the unseen or unexamined.

Sometimes people need the help of a therapist or a very wise and trusted friend in order to make the journey to where the dragon hides out, but Wicks offers lessons in riding the various dragons that we stumble over in everyday life.

He urges readers to develop patterns in their lives, patterns of caring and having concern for others without adding their burdens to our own, a genuine compassion which is not spiritually depleting.

Wicks encourages frequent—at least daily—periods of silence during which one can quiet down and “let the dirt of the day settle.” For those without the time or inclination for lengthy meditation, he urges taking ten minutes or even two in the morning or at night to touch base with one’s inner self and put life in perspective.

Difficult situations, he said, shake us out of our ruts and offer the opportunity to see our lives in a new way. If we can accept them (however unwelcome they may seem) and put them to good use rather than just running away from them we will be riding our dragons to new heights.

Riding the Dragon could be useful for anyone interested in spiritual and psychological growth, but like Wicks’s practice it is geared especially toward those who spend time helping others through difficulties.

Riding the Dragon was published in 2003 by Sorin Books, Notre Dame, Indiana; www.sorinbooks.com.

At a shopping area about 25 miles west of my home, the term “Black Friday” took on a new and macabre meaning this year.

The now traditional day-after-Thanksgiving jump-start of the Christmas shopping season, so called because it helps merchants put their finances into the black, has been getting more hyped each year. Last Thursday as I was going to bed I heard radio reports of miles-long traffic jams leading to outlet centers where “midnight madness” sales were going to kick off the shopping day. Worse, in these troubled financial times more merchants stay open on Thanksgiving itself, depriving their employees of the chance to spend the holiday with their families or friends.

At the Wal-Mart in Valley Stream, N.Y., limited numbers of bargain-priced products—big-screen televisions and other electronic marvels—were going to be on sale from 5-11 a.m. Friday.

The crowds outside the store reportedly began to swell as early as three o’clock. At 3:30 a.m. local police were called and came with bullhorns to assist with crowd control, although stores are supposed to provide their own security personnel to handle matters.  Shortly before five, possibly in response to a joking remark by a store employee that there might be an early opening, there was a surge in the crowd, those in front being pushed by those behind, and glass-and-metal doors were broken down. The mob rushed in through the opening.

Jdimytai Damour, 34, who’d been hired as a seasonal employee and had been sent to the front of the store because he was a big, tall man, was trampled to death. Four other people, including a woman eight months pregnant, had to be hospitalized for minor injuries.

My mind can’t quite get around this incident. I can imagine someone being accidentally knocked down by the rush of a crowd—I’ve been jostled in crowds—but how could anyone step on a fellow human being and not stop to help? How could a man be trampled to death, not by a herd of mindless wild animals but by a herd of single-minded shoppers?

And when authorities tried to close the store in order to investigate the circumstances of the death and injury, some people ignored announcements that a death had occurred, refused to stop shopping, and continued to fill carts with those precious bargains.

So much is illustrated by this story. The mad pursuit of consumer products has become a kind of idol worship. We’re in a recession, frightened by comparisons to the Great Depression, and by golly we’re going to get those big-screen TVs while the getting’s good.

When we’ve done something hard, we feel entitled to a reward. Those folks who stood out in the cold beginning at 3 a.m. surely believed they deserved to get whatever it was they’d been waiting for—and probably felt more protective of their entitlement because there apparently was no orderly line: there was a real danger that someone who’d arrived later might get through the Wal-Mart door sooner, and how unfair would that be?

We can all too easily become part of a herd, or a mob. When the first person passed the fallen Mr. Damour without stopping to help him, most of those who followed probably felt no particular responsibility to offer aid. Heroes are heroic because they do the unusual, they do more than is required of them; they don’t stay with the group of folks each minding his or her own business but move out of line and act to help others.

We’ll never know what was going through the minds of those people as they surged into the store. One would hope that most had no idea of what was happening. Maybe others feared that if they stopped they themselves would be pushed over by the crowd. Perhaps the fault lies with the people running Wal-Mart, who hoped for a crowd but didn’t take steps or have enough personnel on hand to keep it from becoming a mob.

I used to have a secretary who did all her Christmas shopping early. Every year, sometime in October, she would say to me, “So, do you have all your Christmas shopping done?” And after the second or third year I would reply with some exasperation, “Marie, you know I never start until after Thanksgiving!” I think she was hoping to encourage me not to procrastinate. I actually enjoy seeking out gifts, especially happy-surprise gifts, for the people who are special to me, but I just don’t get into the spirit of things until the Advent candles show up. This year I’m afraid it’s going to take me even longer.