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!
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