No Wait!

It's Christmas catalog season, have you noticed?  Everyday I get two or three, some from companies I've heard of, more from companies that bought my name from somewhere.  Some get glanced at; all go into the recycling bin.  Two this week caught my eye:  a catalog for SERRV, which supports homemade, fair trade, and nonprofit, and What on Earth? one of those cheap-junk collection.  Polar opposites of the shopping world, like Etsy vs. Amazon.  Here was a catalog supporting individuals in underdeveloped countries, people in villages with no jobs, or even people in our own country who are learning skills and supporting themselves.  All making beautiful, useful, unique items.  On the other hand, there was a catalog selling t-shirts, mugs, wall plaques, and the like of the cheapest materials for the cheapest prices.  No word about their workers, no doubt because its sourced from sweatshops in China and elsewhere, with poor working conditions, low wages, and unfair labor practices.  In fact in a way, that catalog leads to the need for the other, as multinational corporations undermine local economies and support unfair labor practices in the creation of crap, leaving families in need of work and help, as offered by SERRV . It becomes a vicious cycle:  we buy cheap, which supports poor wages and labor practices, and then our own jobs are downsized and outsourced so companies can compete with the cheap and make money, which leaves us having to save money and only buy cheap.  Of course, almost all of us do it--it's easy, popular, ubiquitous, affordable,, and also sometimes useful and even necessary.  I buy stuff from Amazon because it's cheap, easy, and instantly available; I bought a Christmas present from the crappy catalog last year because I thought it would make someone smile.  In both cases, I ignored or conveniently overlooked or was not fully conscious of the larger implications.

On Sunday, in a sermon on the UU first principle of the inherent worth and dignity of all people, our new consulting minister, Frances Sink, told a story about a four-way stop.  She arrived at an intersection at the same time as the car to her left (which, if I understand traffic laws correctly, means he had the right-of-way).  Being in a hurry, she raised her hand as if to say both "please wait" and "thanks" as she headed through the intersection.  And then she recognized the driver--it was someone in her congregation.  She was embarrassed.  She suddenly reexamined the moment and saw herself differently.  She had put herself before another, endangering them both if he had ignored her wave.  Why was she more important than him at that moment? Why did it matter that she knew him?  Are we only more respectful to those we know?  And finally, she came to a larger philosophical question:  "who has to wait so I can live my life?"

Who has to wait so I can live my  life?  Those words have sat with me since Sunday, reverberating through my thoughts and actions, both large and small.  I had hoped at one time to buy fair trade coffee and chocolate.  It's a goal that I've only partially accomplished because it can be hard to find or expensive.  So, the people, including children, practically enslaved on cocoa and coffee plantations have to wait for safety, health, dignity, fairness, and justice so I can have a cup of coffee or a snack?  Or, playing it forward, the health and safety of future generations will wait so we can have air-conditioning, plastics, and use of our cars now, thereby contributing to a host of environmental problems?  You can identify such patterns on almost any level, from international to local.  More personally, who around me has to wait?  Mama and the kids have all put things on hold so I can recover, particularly Mama, who is strained by  all of the responsibilities and stress of career, household, a chronically-injured spouse, and two young children.  Similarly, my family in Texas waits for us to visit--especially my sister and her husband with my "new" nearly one-year old niece that I've never seen.  No one complains about the sacrifices (perhaps because an injury is a "good" reason?  Or because they do it voluntarily, out of empathy and compassion?).  Or the disappointments.  But they're there.

Of course, waiting is a part of life and, in many instances, a good experience.  Especially when it's conscious and voluntary.  In fact, perhaps if we had more waiting, more patience, and less instant gratification with little things in our consumerist society, like toys or books or even coffee, others might not have to wait as long for the larger things like justice, health, etc (which is involuntary and coerced).  You know, spread the waiting around more equally.  I realize that our choices always effect others and the future, that someone is always at the top, more people at the bottom.  Like the Occupy Wall Street 99-percenters, I'd like to see the gap decrease, the inequality lessen, the negative effects minimized.  Even if we can't eliminate the bottom, so to speak, we can raise it up so that the 99% are not always waiting so the 1% can live their lives on the backs of everyone else.  (Yes, I'm pretty much a socialist.)  We can try to neutralize the negative.

Which boils down to my catalogs again:  I'm not going to satisfy any instant gratification of cheap stuff from the What on Earth? catalog so that both the workers in those factories and the artisans of SERRV have to wait to live better lives on my account.  And I'll be practicing expanding that to all areas of my life, being conscious and aware of when (and why) others wait on my behalf and making choices to minimize the ill effects.

Shop (and live) wisely . . . . no waiting!

Fair is Tough

I wrote a few weeks ago about how I was inspired to go fair trade in my purchases of tea, coffee, and chocolate. I'm finding that decision much harder than I expected. My usual stores don't carry fair trade chocolate chips (candy bars are easier); in fact, I didn't see any at Whole Foods either. And there might only be one flavor of fair trade tea, never decaf, at the regular grocery. As for coffee, that is the easiest, but not easy. I'm not giving up; I just need to develop a supply line that doesn't rely on last-minute grocery store runs or trips to Whole Foods. I guess I'll be buying online. But I'm disappointed . . . because, out of tea this morning, I picked up my old brands.

Being Fair

While this could be a post on the challenges of sharing and taking turns with twins, it's actually about the larger picture of sharing and taking turns.

Fair trade.

I hadn't given "fair trade" much thought, though I'm a coffee and tea drinker and a chocolate eater. I don't know why it was under my radar, since I am usually fairly conversant with many green and progressive ideas. Maybe because almost nothing at my usual stores carries the fair trade label, maybe because I knew my habits would have to change, maybe because I didn't think it was important?

Well, it is. And I heard all about it at church last week.

Fair trade is "a set of principles and practices that more equitably distributes wealth and provides producers and farmers with a living wage." Traditional coffee and chocolate farmers, caught in a web of global economics that deny them fair prices and exploit their back-breaking labor, "are unable to make a sustainable living, and face huge obstacles to claiming their human rights including lack of adequate housing, education, and health care." A story was told about a woman coffee grower (I want to say in Ethiopia, but I can't track down the story, one of thousands, I know) who can no longer clothe or school her children, who now must work in appallingly hard conditions to help the family, though they used to be able to hire helpers back years ago when they could get a fair price for their crop; now, they aren't even getting by. It's not just international, either. Small family farmers in this country understand the pressures and difficulties as well. And so a set of principles for fair trade, or "alternative economy," have been established:

• promote solidarity and the ethical, transparent, and co-responsible relations along the chain of production and consumption;

• value democracy, participatory ownership, and economic viability based on cooperation;

• prioritize the capacity building and empowerment of producers and workers who are marginalized by the conventional system of commercial relations;

• uphold full labor rights, including a living wage;

• advance equality and opportunity for women, racial and ethnic minorities, indigenous peoples, youth, and other marginalized communities;

• value diversity of cultures, crops, and markets;

• promote environmental justice and sustainability.

"As a consumer, when you buy fairly traded goods, you express your beliefs about how our food should be produced, and you become part of the process of creating a more just economic system."

(all quotes taken from the UUSC pages on Fair Trade)

And so, I'm changing all my brands. No more Twinnings decaf Earl Grey or Starbucks iced coffee; no more Nestle chocolate chips. And if that means I don't get decaf Earl Grey (well, there is a brand, Choice Organic Teas, but it doesn't have any bergamot flavor) or have to make special trips to find special chocolate chips, I'm willing to pay the price. Figuratively and literally, because as you can imagine, fair trade costs more and can be difficult to find. But like organic, I can see that it's worth it, even if I have to buy less of it. Why should my personal coffee habit cause actual pain to someone halfway around the world? That's a bitter brew. At least the fair trade way, my indulgences can taste good and be good.