i've been shooting my whole life, and i'm finally learning how to aim.
today andy gave the sermon at church. he spoke about conviction and repentance. a topic that he delivered in a way so encouragingly that i could only think back to my roots in a church that would have approached the same topic with all the wrath of an angry god flying hot in your face. turn 'r burn, if you will. that is all a rabbit trail though, it was not the discussion of conviction or repentance that caught me, but andy's selection of things the average american christian ought be convicted for. admittedly, he did try to come up with flaws that carried with them outward implications as opposed to the regular church sins, which seem to inflict most of their damage on the person choosing them. his choice took me immediately back to something i picked up in houston and cling to tightly.
our western society is fueled by consumerism. i know, you'd expect me to just tell you we don't need all that stuff and we should live much more simply than we do...and if that thought is convicting to you then maybe it applies, but that is not the point of me writing here. even if we cut back, we will always consume. even if we do so with smaller carbon footprints than the rest, or by using our reusable whole foods bag instead of one of the billions of plastic bags we go through in this country every year, we still consume. so, i'm not saying to stop. i'm saying what andy said, and what my church in houston lives out: think. i'll steal andy's example to clarify. 40% of the worlds chocolate is produced from cocoa beans grown on farms harvested by children. children who work reprehensible hours. children who, after working these hours, may or may not be paid for their labor, and who then may or may not have food to eat, may or may not have a roof to sleep under, and may or may not even be able to leave their farm...and yes, some of these cases would be considered slavery. (i won't get started on the statistics of child slavery in the world right now, but they aren't pretty.) where to point the finger? well the people running the farms right? they say the west won't pay them enough for their crop to have any money for the workers. the corporations? they could pay more...but then there's the system. a consumer system that leads to us. they listen to us. we want cheaper, they give us cheaper, and cheaper, and cheaper, until we've now left these children with literally nothing. us? well, we're a part of it. to quote andy, "and that's just chocolate." when we ask only for the cheapest goods, we fail to look past the swipe at the checkout counter and the number at the other end of it on the atm screen. we don't think about the process.
to sum up all of it, we must think. ask the questions that need asking. know the companies you are buying from and how they really do business. know that farmers are getting and giving fair wages from the produce you buy and the coffee you drink. yeah, sure, it means a little more legwork on your part, but really? kids in slavery, women in poverty, and whatever other grim fates you can come up with? it's worth asking a few questions just to do your little part to help. consumerism is a system that can be influenced by christian living. in and of itself it is not good, but it is, for you and i (if you happen to be a christian and reading this), another place to live out our faith. a platform from which others see the actions of christians, be they good or bad, leading voices against oppression, or numbly drifting along oblivious to their own small part in this ongoing human play. don't just float in the current. lazy rivers are for theme parks not real life. think.
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Sunday, November 16, 2008
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