Cheap, Whatever the Cost!

                                                                                   

I’ll admit that I already had the proverbial bee in my bonnet.  On Sunday The Herald had a “Comparing the Cost of Groceries” article.  It asked, “Where’s the cheapest place to buy groceries in Snohomish County?”  So why did THAT question set me off?  Here’s why.

 

There are, of course, many reasons that an item may be less expensive.  Sometimes, as example, something hasn’t sold and it’s reaching its “pull date,” so the price is cut to get it off the shelves.  Sometimes an item has been discontinued, and to open up the shelves for the new item, the price of the old one is cut. 

 

But these are not the most common ways of getting the price down.  The most common are: 1) controlling the market in such a way as you can brow-beat the producers of an item into selling it to you for so little they barely make a profit and/or 2) paying your employees less than your competitors and “passing the savings” on to the customer.

 

As a minister, and as a member of the human family, I get pretty worked up over our  current culture of demanding “Cheap - whatever the cost might be to anyone else.”  Our fixation remains on ourselves, and not how our decisions may impact others.

 

I found the comparison of grocery stores lacking because not included in the “comparison” were questions like: what do the stores pay their employees? and how much do the stores contribute to their employees’ health benefits? and has the store upgraded to be a better neighbor (for example, less polluting)?

 

Beyond the stores, there are the products themselves.  One example is chocolate.  Most people are still unaware that roughly half of the chocolate we consume comes from child/ slave labor.  The cheaper the chocolate, the more likely it has come from slave labor.  Every time we buy cheap chocolate we are helping to subsidize slave labor.  So, at what cost “cheap?” 

 

As one who believes strongly that we are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers, I think that often the price of “cheap” is often just too high.

 

Which leads me to today.  I need a new and accurate thermometer.  I went to one store.  But ALL of their thermometers, expensive and cheap, were made in China.  I do my utmost to avoid items made in China, so I drove to my pharmacy.  But there too ALL of the thermometers were made in China.

 

You might ask yourself, why is it so much cheaper to manufacture something in China and then ship it all the way to the U.S.?  One answer, of course, is labor costs. 

 

In the U.S., we actually have a minimum wage.  We actually demand that workers get what is in the U.S. a livable salary.  And we also demand that factories don’t pollute.

 

I understand that there are those whose answer would be to let our factories pollute, and allow companies to pay their workers substandard, sweat-shop wages.  That is indeed, one way to get things cheap. 

 

But that’s my point.  I believe the price of that kind of cheap is much too high.  I won’t pay it.  It’s a matter of values.

Fair Trade Evangelical

 

This coming Sunday, June 26^th, we celebrate our first year at Living Interfaith.  I rehearsed with the choir last night.  They are going to be great.  And we’ll have a tad more music than usual.  I’m also, of course, starting to ponder what to say during the sermon time – though I have already picked what I think are two powerful responsive readings.  And there’s a beautiful Interfaith reading from the Sufi poet Hafiz that I will share during the shared reading time.

 

There is much to celebrate in this first year, and I may have more about that later in the week.  What was fun today was securing a very special dessert for our potluck after the service.  It’s a chocolate walnut pie.  It’s one of my all time favorite desserts.  It’s made by a wonderful restaurant in Everett called the Sisters.

 

The problem has been that I haven’t been able to eat this favorite ever since I learned about the sordid history of much of our chocolate.  If you are eating chocolate from one of the major chocolate makers, and for sure if the chocolate isn’t expensive, the odds are you are eating chocolate that is the fruit of slave labor, and frequently child slave labor.

 

I’ve been good-naturedly bugging the folks at The Sisters to use fair-traded chocolate.  I finally got the reply, “Well, if you’ll provide the fair-traded chocolate, we’ll make you the pie.”

 

Ok.  I’m up for a challenge.  And a challenge it was.  There’s lots of fair-traded chocolate bars out there now.  But very few bars of unsweetened, fair-traded baking chocolate.  Finally I found some at PCC.  Not cheap!  But I knew it wouldn’t be.

 

Today I took two bars up to The Sisters (along with a short article printed from the web about the slave connection to cheap chocolate).  The sister who bakes the pies (I’m terrible with names!) was busy ordering.  But when she was done we had our chat. 

 

We started out very pleasantly.  But as the conversation got going I told her I was an evangelist.  I could see her eyes widen and her body recoiled.  “Are you a minister?” she asked me.

 

Ah, the bad reputation evangelism has!  I told her yes, I am a minister; but NO I was not there to try to talk to her about THAT.  I told her I was an evangelist for fair traded chocolate.  She smiled, noticeably relaxed and we continued on with a conversation that lasted a good twenty minutes.

 

We even moved away from chocolate briefly and talked about the high cost of cheap.  She understood immediately and cited some examples that she knew about regarding shoes and clothes. 

 

In the end, I left her with enough chocolate to make four pies (just one for me), and the thought that she might just want to check out the chocolate for herself.  And that maybe people wouldn’t mind paying a little more for pies (GREAT pies) made from fair-traded chocolate.  No commitments.  But I know she’ll think about it.

 

Meanwhile, on Friday I get to pick up my fair-traded chocolate walnut pie for our service on Sunday.  And am yet again reminded of the slogan I didn’t make up.  “Every dollar we spend is a vote for the kind of world we want to live in.”  Today we voted for justice for those who harvest our chocolate.  A good day.

One Glorious Weekend

 

I’m one hugely fortunate human being.  I truly enjoy my work. 

 

Ministry, like life, can have its rough patches.  And certainly founding a new church certainly has its challenges!  But it is also wonderfully fulfilling.  That said, even with the overall joy of my life work, this has been an extraordinarily uplifting weekend.

 

Friday night I was privileged to be present at my friend Jill’s ordination.  Jill’s calling, at least at present, is as a chaplain.  She gives solace and a compassionate ear to those who are hurting, and their families.  Friday night she was officially ordained.  She will be a wonderful source of light in the world.  I am so happy for her, but also so happy for those who will come into contact with her.  I was able to process as a minister, an Interfaith minister.  And I’ll admit is was a bit of a kick to explain to my fellow ministers what an  Interfaith minister is about.  Like so many, they are very familiar and (this group particularly) very supportive of interfaith dialogue.  But an Interfaith minister was something not really as yet on their radar. 

 

On Saturday, I met with a core group of members of our Interfaith Church.  We were working on our Mission and Vision statements.  The end product was inspiring.  Look for our Mission and Vision statements to be posted on this website in about a week.  But equally inspiring was the way we went about it.  No egos.  No competition.  “Just” the desire to state as powerfully and accurately as possible who we are and what we hope for.  “We.”  It was all about “we.”  Everyone in the room wholly committed to “we.” 

 

We wordsmithed.  We made suggestions.  When the suggestions helped to clarify things we adopted them.  When they didn’t, we didn’t.  No votes.  No Roberts’ Rules.  We worked by consensus.  And the reason it will be a week before posting is there remains one word in the document where we haven’t yet reached consensus.  I’ve been hugely privileged to work with a lot of wonderful people as my life has unfolded.  But never such an unselfish and dedicated group. 

 

Saturday night I attended a “diversity diner” hosted by friends.  Got to chat with some delightful and thoughtful folk.  And best of all, I learned that a friend who was battling cancer had had new tests that showed the cancer in remission.  Yes!  And the weekend wasn’t over. 

 

Then came Sunday!  The service revisited the American Dream.  In my own preparation for the service, looking at Christianity, Buddhism, Islam and so many other sacred paths, I was reminded of how our diverse traditions warn us of how dangerous to ourselves and our community the desire to accumulate possessions is.  And yet again I am reminded that we have been hacking each other apart over dogma – how to pray and what to believe.  What our spiritual paths call on us to DO is startlingly similar.

 

And yet, as good as I think the sermon was, it was dwarfed by the discussion that followed it.  We sat around a table, shared our potluck and talked about what it is that we wanted to pass along to our children, what we value, and why.  What a wonderful, deeply spiritual, hugely engaged group of people.  And I’m their minister.  What an honor, what an amazing privilege to a part of Interfaith as it takes root and grows.

Of Humanity, Ladders and Volunteering

 

I’ve been watching with growing sadness as some friends, good, caring people, trying to make a difference in the world, seem to be increasingly overwhelmed by the magnitude of the need.  In part, I think the question can become how does a caring person stay sane in an increasingly insane world?  I don’t have answers here.  Just some musings.

 

Some, of course, find their answer in becoming numb to the problems of others.  Not a particularly caring answer, but still an answer – survival-mode.  This answer comes down to “I look after me.  And to hell with the world … that’s where it’s going anyway!” 

 

Others, whose need to do something positive in the world overrides the temptation to become numb, become myopic in their vision.  They pick one thing, one cause, and then zealously and jealously pursue it.  It might be supporting education, it might be battling hunger, it might be exposing racism, but whatever it is, it is to the fierce diminution of other causes.  Whatever the pecking order, “my cause” comes first. 

 

While understandable, this second approach is not often hugely helpful.  Imagine a ladder.  One ladder.  And six people trying to climb it at the same time, all shouting “Me first!  Me first!”  How many, do you suppose, make it up the ladder? 

 

Continuing with the metaphor of the ladder, it’s as if humanity is trying to make it over a  wall, and the wealthiest and most powerful among us have scooped up every ladder but one.  It seems to me that for some obscene reason we’ve now accepted that there’s only one ladder available and we’re fighting each other to climb it.  The spiritual teaching of every faith-path tells us that we need to share.   Instead of scrambling over each other, competing for the bottom rung on the lone ladder, we really ought to be moving towards a society with more ladder access.  But the metaphor has now been stretched to the breaking point.  More to the point, we’re getting away from what I want to be talking about.  Let’s talk more about ladder-access some other time.

 

For today, the question is: how does a caring person stay sane in an increasingly insane  world; and particularly: how do we keep the forest in view while still paying close attention to the tree that is the calling of our heart?  I was taught a hugely grand, hugely warming lesson about that today. 

 

My heart and soul are Interfaith.  It is the calling of my life.  I’ve written a book on it (to be published next spring), write blogs about it and helped to start the Living Interfaith Church to show how we can LIVE Interfaith, and learn from it and grow to understand each other better.  Interfaith is my tree.  Yet it’s but one tree in the forest.  Sometimes I can forget that.

 

Today, however, I spend several hours volunteering at the local food bank.  Yes, feeding the hungry has always also been important to me, and yes, we collect food for the food bank at every service.  But donating food is not the same as donating time.  Today I donated time.  We sorted through huge “totes” of food that the Postal Service (having collected food for its annual food drive) had distributed to the local food bank.  The food came in a jumble.  Our job was to make sense of it.  Fruit in one box, beans in another, canned meat in another, etc..

 

It was fun.  I met a bunch of terrific people who were also volunteering (as well as working with a terrific person who just happens to be a member of our congregation who was also donating time).  The glorious thing was that it had NOTHING to do with Interfaith.  Nothing.  Zip.  It was volunteering for a good cause, but also it was like a vacation. 

 

I am going to continue to volunteer time.  Non-Interfaith volunteer time.  I strongly recommend the concept.  It’s a way for me to keep in touch with the forest, while I so carefully nurture my favored tree: the cause of Interfaith.

 

And darn it!  We need more ladders!!