my Blog

The new thing....

Wed, 5 May 2010 12:33:05 -0500

I haven’t been blogging much over the past year. Bob Carlton’s return to blogging has inspired me today. The new thing is Good & Fair Clothing. In 2007 I saw an example of fairtrade business done well when I attended a Trade as One market at my church. That began a journey that has lead me to start a fairtrade clothing company. Good & Fair will start small with mens and women’s underwear and tee shirts and soon I hope to make jeans, khakis, and button down shirts when I can work out the design and fairtrade production for those more difficult to make items. I am partnering with, fairtrade certified, Chetna organic cotton farmers cooperative in central India. Cotton farming in India has been a tragic tale. Hundreds of Indian farmers have committed suicide because they were so in debt that they couldn’t see a way out from under the compounding monetary burden. They would drink the same pesticides that they bought with borrowed money to end their own lives. Now, with Chetna’s help these same farmers are paid a fair price for their product, and have the tools and knowledge to farm organically without the need for pesticides. I believe approximately 4,000 farmers make up this coop. No member farmers of the coop have committed suicide. A truly beautiful story.

These are the people Good & Fair supports, or, I should say, will support. We are in the design stage and set to place the first order this month. It is a scary and exciting time.

Stepping out into the work of God’s Kingdom, which I believe this is, is a massive undertaking. I was talking with a friend about “what makes a calling?” One of his major criteria were “it is impossible without God’s help.” As I heard that I thought to myself, well this (Good & Fair) qualifies. So many aspects of this are new to me and seem daunting. Only with God’s help can this be done. God’s people have shown up and pitched in. I turned my birthday party last weekend into a fundraiser, and it did so much better than I thought it would. The people and resources are showing up. The vision is clear and I am stepping into the calling. Am I totally prepared? No. Does that freak me out a bit? Yes.

“Good news to the poor” has been interpreted many, many ways down thru the years. I can’t pretend to think I know what Jesus meant in totality when he said he came to “bring good news to the poor.” However, I can’t deny that he must have meant, at least in part, that it meant fair pay for one honest work, not subjecting the poor to massive debt that they can never get out from under, and not taking advantage of the poor because one can.

I can wrap my head around that kind of theology and that gospel.

So much more to come on Good & Fair Clothing. Be on the look out for it.

Blessings.

Trade as One “Just One” campaign

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 19:10:30 -0500

This new amazing video cuts to the heart of fair trade and ethical shopping. When you are the consumer you have power, you can use it for good. Buy just one fair trade item this year when doing your Christmas shopping.

From Trade as One website (www.tradeasone.com/justone):
“Think about this: Just One fair trade purchase from every American churchgoer this Christmas would lift one million families out of abusive poverty for one whole year.
Let’s make sure that when gifts are given, they speak of the sort of world that Jesus came to show us—one where the last is first, where the poor are included, the sick are healed, and the captive is set free.
In choosing Fair Trade, we apply the principle of loving others as we love ourselves to how products are sourced. We buy things we need, and give a job and a future to people living in desperate poverty.
The Just One idea revolves around one startling statistic: Just One Fair Trade purchase from every churchgoer in America would lift one million families out of poverty for one whole year.”

prayer faith sacrifice

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:30:21 -0500

We read 1 Samuel chapter 1 at church on Sunday. It is the story of Hannah’s prayer, faith, sacrifice and of Samuel being born. The idea of sacrifice is very foreign to me, especially the kind exemplified by Hannah. She gave up the thing she wanted most. She prayed for a son because she had been unable to have children. Her offering to God, in order have a son, was the son she would have. “If you give me a son, I’ll give it to you” basically.

Prayer is something I understand and believe in. Understand in a academic sense and something I try to practice. I think is changes me more than anything else. I grew up praying for exactly what I wanted. Somewhere along the line I stopped praying for what I wanted and started praying for what God wanted. Now, from time to time I still sneak in a private want or request. There was a time about a year ago when I got very angry with God. I felt as though he had not kept up his end of the deal. I yelled at God, “I want nothing other than what you want, there is nothing else I would rather do then what you have planned. Why am I here alone running to you and you keep running away?” I was quite angry.

God handled my anger and my rant and my swearing. Again, that angry prayer changed me more than it did God.

I recently began a tattoo on my left arm. It is my first tattoo and it isn’t small. It is a graphic/artistic rendering of story found in Matthew chapter 6. The one where Jesus tells us not to worry. “25 Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? 28 "And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” I am getting this tattoo for two reasons, one, to remember that this is my story, I have been taken care of, and two, I need to remember that God will take of me, of us. Ok, three reasons, I have always wanted a tattoo.

So yeah, I pray, I have some faith, but I am in awe of Hannah and her sacrifice. I am willing to think about what I need to sacrifice, that’s about as far as I can get today.

NYC/The Feast

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 16:37:20 -0500

Taking off tomorrow for my first trip ever to NYC. Will be attending “The Feast” conference and then soaking up the big city for a few days. Looking forward to the connections to be made and the new folks I’ll meet. Will be taking a ton of pics while I am there.

Any suggestions for places to go in NYC or things to do?

Walking the neighborhood

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 14:45:17 -0500

I walked my new neighborhood for the first time yesterday. It has been just too hot to get out a walk for any length of time and actually enjoy it until now. My friend, Shannon Hopkins, suggested that I start prayer walking my new ‘hood given what I want to do here. Having never done that before I really didn’t know how it was going to go. After a while I started to get a feel for the texture of my ‘hood and who is living here. The idea of finding out “where God is at work” continued to track through my mind. There are several churches in this little neighborhood, however, I don’t necessarily equate that with God being at work. Color me cynical I guess.

Now I have a very general idea of what I want to happen as a result of me living here. I want to build community and help God bring redemption/reconciliation. Now could that be any more amorphous and “nothingness” talk? I don’t think so. So, what does that actually mean and what is it really going to look like? Does it mean that I start some sort of business that employs local folks? Does it mean I start an org that does tutoring and work with youth? Is it some sort of other social enterprise that connects the new and the old in the changing neighborhood? Or is it something much more simple? I have no idea.

That is what struck me most about my walk...be open to what the need is and to jump in where God is at work. I’ll continue to walk and pray, watch, meet, listen, observe and live with and be part of.