hi! don't panic that this looks empty. I promise there will be more soon. For now, my General Conference posts are over on the Rev Steph Eclectic Garden blog. I've been kind of scared of writing blogs, but I figure if I just pretend it's a super long tweet, I can do it...
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
What Would Jesus Purchase? Fair Trade and what it means to shop like a Christian
Ah, Advent. A time for journey and discovery, a time of waiting and anticipation… a time when the clash of the Christian and secular calendars rings in our ears and shakes our souls. What is a person to do? To be awake in the United States during Advent is to struggle daily with the siren call of the stuff in our lives, the stuff that could be in our lives, and the stuff that will likely be contributed to our lives in the guise of Christmas, holiday, and seasonal gifts.
I remember when I used to find the dawning of the Christmas consumer season a time of intrigue. How close to Halloween would the toy commercials start? Would Christmas trees appear in the neighborhood store before Thanksgiving? Would dreidels and menorahs appear in toy store displays in an attempt to encourage interfaith consumption?
Then the congregation I was serving agreed to start a thrift store. It’s existence seven years later would seem to indicate that it was a good idea, and at the time I figured I would learn all kinds of interesting things about how to calculate tax, price paperbacks, and size children’s clothing; and I did. I also learned just how much stuff is out there, wafting about in the world, sometimes landing in our thrift store. We knew little about the history of the donations, just that their previous owner had chosen to pass them on for others to discover. As I studied, priced, and arranged the donations, I would look for labels – size, country of origin, fiber content, details that told part of the story for each orphaned item.
Meanwhile, I was holding a bit of a grudge. A Lincoln native, I was horrified to discover when I moved to Omaha that, unlike Lincoln, there were no Fair Trade stores in town. There were a few stores that carried some Fair Trade items, but not the wealth of choice to which I was accustomed. I vowed that one day I would do something to bring Fair Trade to Omaha. Which brings us back to the thrift store. Reading the labels from the many items from many, many nations, made me wonder: what if we started selling Fair Trade items in addition to the thrift? What if we helped our shoppers add ethical trading practices to the reduce/reuse/recycle ethic they had already adopted? We placed our first fair trade orders, one for chocolate and the other for scarves, jewelry and household items, and we waited to see what would happen. The results didn’t look that dramatic. Shoppers continued to purchase thrift items, and they started purchasing the fair trade. But then the shoppers started asking questions. We found ourselves having conversations about what we mean when we use the phrase “living wage.” We discussed the tasty virtues of fair trade chocolate. We read about the artist cooperatives that were producing the crafts that we sold in the store. Our fair trade sales increased, and we were able to increase our inventory while knowing that we were participating in the global economy in as ethical a way as we knew how.
About a month ago someone asked me if I could cite a biblical basis for Jesus’ support of community gardens. I explained that while the nature of agriculture had likely changed a bit over the last 2000 years, he seemed to like sharing and a good meal. Thinking about the biblical basis for Fair Trade, I’d have to say that Jesus seemed to have a real and consistent concern for people, and that we don’t hear a lot of stories about Jesus reveling in shopping trips to the mall.
At our thrift store, the Blue Flamingo, we often explain to people who are new to the concept of fair trade that the fair trade process is valuable because it ensures that workers are paid a fair wage; that the goods we are purchasing were not created in a sweatshop, or by a young child working in a dark and damp basement, 16 hours a day, paid just pennies. And it is true that fair trade does involve a commitment to fair, living wages for workers. But when we limit our understanding of fair trade to just the living wage component, we miss the complexity of the fair trade movement, which includes several themes that work together to help us live into a different way of participating in the global marketplace. If fair trade related only to people earning a living wage, the movement’s work would be limited to negotiating a living minimum wage for every country. Instead, fair trade works for justice in several ways.
In addition to paying artisans a living wage, fair trade is committed to helping change the systems of communities by empowering the artisans. Fair trade work is almost always accomplished in a cooperative setting, where artisans participate in setting the value for their work and where decisions are made to benefit a group’s self interest rather than the interests of a few. Fair trade utilizes local resources and cares for the environment by using sustainable and/or recycled materials. Fair trade builds community capacity by providing opportunities for education and skill-building to the artists and their families. Fair trade acknowledges systems of global oppression, and works to empower those who have been left out, including women and children. Fair trade companies and associations engage in critique and review of their processes to ensure that they are struggling with the difficult questions of how to be ethical in the global market.
To purchase fair trade is to use our buying power to stand with people who are actively engaged in seeking justice, working cooperatively, telling their stories, honoring God’s creation, and sharing their gifts. What would Jesus purchase? He would purchase fair trade.
Resources:
Fair Trade: A Beginner’s Guide, by Jacqueline DeCarlo, OneWorld Publications
The No-Nonsense Guide to Fair Trade, by David Ransom, published by New Internationalist publishing cooperative
Blue Flamingo Thrift www.blueflamingo.org
I remember when I used to find the dawning of the Christmas consumer season a time of intrigue. How close to Halloween would the toy commercials start? Would Christmas trees appear in the neighborhood store before Thanksgiving? Would dreidels and menorahs appear in toy store displays in an attempt to encourage interfaith consumption?
Then the congregation I was serving agreed to start a thrift store. It’s existence seven years later would seem to indicate that it was a good idea, and at the time I figured I would learn all kinds of interesting things about how to calculate tax, price paperbacks, and size children’s clothing; and I did. I also learned just how much stuff is out there, wafting about in the world, sometimes landing in our thrift store. We knew little about the history of the donations, just that their previous owner had chosen to pass them on for others to discover. As I studied, priced, and arranged the donations, I would look for labels – size, country of origin, fiber content, details that told part of the story for each orphaned item.
Meanwhile, I was holding a bit of a grudge. A Lincoln native, I was horrified to discover when I moved to Omaha that, unlike Lincoln, there were no Fair Trade stores in town. There were a few stores that carried some Fair Trade items, but not the wealth of choice to which I was accustomed. I vowed that one day I would do something to bring Fair Trade to Omaha. Which brings us back to the thrift store. Reading the labels from the many items from many, many nations, made me wonder: what if we started selling Fair Trade items in addition to the thrift? What if we helped our shoppers add ethical trading practices to the reduce/reuse/recycle ethic they had already adopted? We placed our first fair trade orders, one for chocolate and the other for scarves, jewelry and household items, and we waited to see what would happen. The results didn’t look that dramatic. Shoppers continued to purchase thrift items, and they started purchasing the fair trade. But then the shoppers started asking questions. We found ourselves having conversations about what we mean when we use the phrase “living wage.” We discussed the tasty virtues of fair trade chocolate. We read about the artist cooperatives that were producing the crafts that we sold in the store. Our fair trade sales increased, and we were able to increase our inventory while knowing that we were participating in the global economy in as ethical a way as we knew how.
About a month ago someone asked me if I could cite a biblical basis for Jesus’ support of community gardens. I explained that while the nature of agriculture had likely changed a bit over the last 2000 years, he seemed to like sharing and a good meal. Thinking about the biblical basis for Fair Trade, I’d have to say that Jesus seemed to have a real and consistent concern for people, and that we don’t hear a lot of stories about Jesus reveling in shopping trips to the mall.
At our thrift store, the Blue Flamingo, we often explain to people who are new to the concept of fair trade that the fair trade process is valuable because it ensures that workers are paid a fair wage; that the goods we are purchasing were not created in a sweatshop, or by a young child working in a dark and damp basement, 16 hours a day, paid just pennies. And it is true that fair trade does involve a commitment to fair, living wages for workers. But when we limit our understanding of fair trade to just the living wage component, we miss the complexity of the fair trade movement, which includes several themes that work together to help us live into a different way of participating in the global marketplace. If fair trade related only to people earning a living wage, the movement’s work would be limited to negotiating a living minimum wage for every country. Instead, fair trade works for justice in several ways.
In addition to paying artisans a living wage, fair trade is committed to helping change the systems of communities by empowering the artisans. Fair trade work is almost always accomplished in a cooperative setting, where artisans participate in setting the value for their work and where decisions are made to benefit a group’s self interest rather than the interests of a few. Fair trade utilizes local resources and cares for the environment by using sustainable and/or recycled materials. Fair trade builds community capacity by providing opportunities for education and skill-building to the artists and their families. Fair trade acknowledges systems of global oppression, and works to empower those who have been left out, including women and children. Fair trade companies and associations engage in critique and review of their processes to ensure that they are struggling with the difficult questions of how to be ethical in the global market.
To purchase fair trade is to use our buying power to stand with people who are actively engaged in seeking justice, working cooperatively, telling their stories, honoring God’s creation, and sharing their gifts. What would Jesus purchase? He would purchase fair trade.
Resources:
Fair Trade: A Beginner’s Guide, by Jacqueline DeCarlo, OneWorld Publications
The No-Nonsense Guide to Fair Trade, by David Ransom, published by New Internationalist publishing cooperative
Blue Flamingo Thrift www.blueflamingo.org
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
first one
Where does a mission and justice blog start? This one is starting on July 13th, about a month before our new website launches. I had the bright idea that if we had a link to a blog on our website, it would force me to have the discipline to actually add content to the blog. The child of a Composition professor whose first career was as a journalist, I have spent my life being admonished to "write it down!" Naturally, there has been some resistance on my part, but I think I am up to the challenge. We will see what happens next in this space.
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