Awaken Your Awareness

Awareness and creativity, like muscles, must be exercised regularly or they will atrophy. If we want to be strengthened in these areas, we need to be challenged. I would suggest finding a creative activity that interests you, and engage in it regularly. Take a painting or pottery class. Sign up for a creative writing course. Try dancing, or improvisation. Don’t worry if you are “no good” at it. It is a process, and it takes patience and practice.

Becoming aware takes time, too, as we begin ingesting the issues and understanding how to best respond. Start with some reading. Look up ‘Fair Trade’ or ‘Social Justice’ on the internet and see where it takes you. Talk to others about what you discover- this would be a great theme for a book club to investigate. Justice is a profound and complex topic, and there are so many issues. I want to suggest just one practical area where our choices and voices will impact, positively or negatively, justice for others: our food.

Let me take you to Ghana. This is just one of many places in our world where people feel so squeezed and desperate that they would sell their land. Or a kidney. Or a child. Or their whole bodies, just to make ends meet. This is where we find farmers who produce the foods we are able buy so cheaply: bananas, sugar, corn, soy, chocolate, tea and coffee, to name just a few. (Example: a distributor sells us coffee at $26.00/kg but the grower receives less than 20 cents/kg.) They fill our baskets, yet cannot afford to feed their own families.

But if we want, we can do something about that from here. We can choose justice by demanding Fair Trade products. Fair Trade respects people above profits. It is not aid or charity. It is a partnership that seeks equity in international trade, especially with producers in the Southern Hemisphere, who are among the most destitute and oppressed in the world: justice for others. Fair Trade also encourages stewardship of land and community: justice for creation. Many supermarkets carry some Fair Trade certified products such as coffee and tea. I have also seen oranges, bananas and grapes. Health food and specialty stores sell other Fair Trade products such as sugar, chocolate, jam, spices and more. Truthfully, at present there is not a great deal of variety available because we have been satisfied with the status quo. Most people are not aware of the issues surrounding our food. We can change this trend by seeking the truth and thinking more creatively about the foods we buy and eat.

Small actions can make a big difference. Does your church have a coffee hour? Serve Fair Trade coffee, and celebrate this move to choosing justly with your congregation. As you’re putting those bananas into your cart, tell the produce manager that you would like to see Fair Trade. Better yet, don’t buy bananas at all until they are Fair Trade. Explore and seek out the shops in your area that support these products. Choose local produce over products from the South (Mexico, Argentina, Equador, Africe etc.). Choose more whole foods instead of highly-processed and convenience products that are laden with sugar and corn sweeteners. And then flex those creative muscles while you cook new things. Justice, too, has some happy side effects: it’s good for others, good for the earth, better for our bodies and great for the soul.