Trying to follow

I don’t often talk about donating to organizations (maybe I do in your opinion), and I’m not suggesting that here. We currently live in a world that creates problems, and then creates organizations and campaigns to fix those problems. It seems a bit backwards to me.

About one year ago I decided to stop eating chocolate, at least chocolate I wasn’t sure was ‘fair trade’ (or if I found it in a dumpster). I went the majority of the year without eating chocolate period, which wasn’t too difficult. The reason I stopped eating chocolate is because I was confronted with the reality that the majority of our chocolate was harvested by children in forced labor in West Africa.

The solution to the problem of labor slavery to harvest cocoa is to choose to avoid those products. For now that means choosing smaller, more transparent companies, particularly those companies that carry the Fair Trade label. That has been the decision I’ve come to. Unlike coffee, which I don’t like and can easily avoid, I’m really a sucker for brownies and so when I choose to purchase chocolate I’ll be sure to choose the fair trade variety.

Your probably asking now where the $30 comes in. I’m not sure how many times you purchase brownies, or other chocolate through out the year, but we’ll just take an estimate. Let’s say that because chocolate isn’t all that good for your health, and because buying fair trade is more expensive, that you choose to purchase a chocolate bar about once every two weeks (am I being modest?). Choosing to buy the fair trade bar (at your local coop) will probably cost you around a dollar more per bar. It seems steep considering it’s probably double the cost of the other bar, but when you look at it in the overall scope, every other week, in a year your looking at about $26 to go from forced labor chocolate to fair trade chocolate. Seems like a pretty nice donation to me.
In the same way, you could eliminate a source of major unpredictable chemicals in your food buy choosing organic milk. Yes, each gallon is considerably more expensive then the store brand, but depending on how much milk you drink (maybe a gallon a week?), your looking at around $100 a year. Seems like a decent donation to chemical free bodies.

I think it’s important to be thinking about our consumer choices in this way, because they have a much bigger impact then we think. We tend to separate our purchasing from our giving, but I think we should start thinking about them together. Consider buying fair trade chocolate and coffee this year. Keep track of the cost difference and consider it as part of your annual giving (don’t know if you can count it on your taxes though). The world will be a better place for it.

I’ve been driving my wife to work lately and as such I turn on the radio while the kiddo naps in the back. I get bored of the music easily and so I’ve been checking out talk radio. One of the stations I’ve been listening to is a ‘conservative talk’ station. I can tell they are conservative because anytime they’ve mentioned a Democrats name or the topics of Global Warming or Immigration it’s been prefaced by negative adjectives. They call people who believe the stuff all kinds of names, which makes me wonder if listening is good for my self-esteem. Anyways, that’s not the point of this post, rather, I’m just wondering why they are so opposed to Global Warming.

Apparently, and I’m fine with stipulating they are right for a bit, there are plenty of scientist our there that know that Global Warming is not a man-made phenomena and it probably doesn’t exist at all. They say it’s a political ploy made up by Liberals and environmentalist. I guess I’m just trying to figure out why.

So, let’s just assume for a moment that Global Warming doesn’t really exist. All that exists is a couple thousand slide Powerpoint presentation by a former Vice-President. What do we do now?

I still think we should drive fuel efficient cars. I still think we should consider the impact our choice of food and consumer choices have on the environment. I still think 20% of the world’s population should not be consuming 80% of it’s resources. I still think the rainforest, the Alaskan landscape, and other feats of nature are beautiful the way they are and we should seek to preserve them. I still think if our tax dollars are going to build life-destroying weapons of war then some of the tax dollars should also go to preserving God’s green earth.

My motivation to be a good steward of this planet and to be environmentally friendly has never been a reaction to the horrors of global warming, it’s been a reaction to the biblical mandate to care for this planet. I don’t see any scientist opinion changing my lifestyle any time soon. All that being said, I wonder why people are so adamant about refuting global warming. Honestly, the only reason I could see for wanting to deny the existence of global warming is to feel less guilt about my consumeristic selfish lifestyle (If I’m wrong please enlighten me).

Each year, Doctors without Borders publishes a report documenting the 10 most underreported stories of 2007. They are all humanitarian in nature and touch on many different places and needs throughout the globe. I believe it is an essential reading for anyone who considers themselves a global citizen.
After you read the report and view the slideshow, I’d pass it on to one or two friends who you think would be interested. And file away your knowledge on these stories to bring up a couple times through out the next few weeks in conversation with others. They aren’t the most exciting things to talk about, but these sorts of situations remain because we are silent and apathetic about them.

Take a read and spread the word.

MSF-USA

(ht. Sam)

Not sure if you’ve heard about the shootings in Colorado that happened at a YWAM base and a church, resulting in five deaths including the attacker. I didn’t know anyone involved, but I did attend that very same YWAM base in the fall of 2000, so a number of people have been asking how I’m doing as a result.
I’m doing fine. Like I said, I didn’t know anyone involved so it seems as disconnected as any other of these types of shootings that I hear about. At the same time, the fact that it happened within the context of a program I have been a part of has given me a chance to ponder a little deeper about the incident. Two things about it concern me.

You can read about the incident on your own, but one thing I want to discuss is how it ended. The gunman shot two people at a large church and then when he walked into the church an armed security guard shot and killed him. I read a few articles discussing church security and it appears a number of large churches do in fact have armed security in the church. This is only my personal opinion, but I don’t think I could attend or be a part of a church that uses guns as a means of ’security.’ I strongly believe in non-violence and I think there is a large precedent for non-violence in what we see of Jesus and the gospels as well as the early church. I don’t believe guns and churches are a good match.

Secondly, I was alarmed by the comment of the pastor of the church concerning the security guard. Given the context, I understand the pastor and others applauding her as a ‘hero’ and the press that she received, however, and this is probably just rhetoric, some of his words alarmed me. The pastor at New Life Church, Brady Boyd, said the guard “probably saved over 100 lives,” when she shot and killed the gunman. Here’s my concern: When a pastor talks about ’saving lives’ I would think he would not depart from his religious beliefs. As Christians, we believe that our lives are more then just the physical one we sustain on this earth and we believe that being saved has a lot more to do with are spiritual life rather then simply the prolonging of this physical one. According to the Bible, it is only by Jesus that we are saved. Jesus saved humanity by violently dying a criminals death not by killing others.

My thoughts and prayers go out to the families of those involved.

I know that last year when I wrote on this topic, some found it depressing. Here are two reasons I will be highlighting some words of Native People’s this week.

1. Thanksgiving is more or less the only time of year that any attention on a national level is given to the history of this country as it involves Native People. It is the one day that many are evening considering that there where people on this land when the pilgrim’s arrived, and it is one opportunity to prick a hole in the pretty packaged history we’ve created for ourselves.
2. As a Christian, I am compelled more and more that Jesus pointed to the poor, the oppressed, the downtrodden and outcast as the true leaders of his kingdom, the ones who receive blessing, the ones to whom the kingdom belongs. In an effort to follow Christ, I want to give opportunity to silence my voice, and lift up others

The National Day of Mourning takes place on the same day we celebrate Thanksgiving. It is a protest by Native People’s to mourn the loss of their land and the injustices that have continued since that time. With no real solution on the horizon it’s been asked, “When will the protest end?”

According to a speech by Moonanum James, Co-Leader of United American Indians of New England at the 29th National Day of Mourning, November 26, 1998:

Some ask us: Will you ever stop protesting? Some day we will stop protesting: We will stop protesting when the merchants of Plymouth are no longer making millions of dollars off the blood of our slaughtered ancestors. We will stop protesting when we can act as sovereign nations on our own land without the interference of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and what Sitting Bull called the “favorite ration chiefs.” When corporations stop polluting our mother, the earth. When racism has been eradicated. When the oppression of Two-Spirited people is a thing of the past. We will stop protesting when homeless people have homes and no child goes to bed hungry. When police brutality no longer exists in communities of color. We will stop protesting when Leonard Peltier and Mumia Abu Jamal and the Puerto Rican independentistas and all the political prisoners are free. Until then, the struggle will continue.