:: in.a.mirror.dimly ::

While visiting my hometown of Philly this fall I was chatting with a friend of mine who lives in the city with a community of peacemakers. We were discussing the various Christian groups in the city, and you can’t talk about that without mentioning Shane Claiborn, the Tony Campolo inspired, Jesus-driven ordinary radical who has done so much to bring justice and equality to the poor of the city and worldwide.

My friend mentioned that Shane makes his own clothes, which explains why he always seemed to be wearing a t-shirt in pictures. Shane seems to have a problem with the possibility of underpaid children making his clothing and consumer spending.

Gulp.

Yeah, so this global economy can be a real bummer sometimes.

I’ve made up my mind that for now I’m going to unplug myself partially from the system, but for the time being I don’t see a way to keep my current job and stop buying decent clothes. I also have  yet to find fair-trade clothing. Even white t-shirts are impossible to find, and t-shirts are often made with cotton from India where farmers are underpaid and gradually go insane from the pesticides drenched on the cotton. They call cotton the suicide crop… It’s not pretty. Oh, and the earth is getting trashed too.

So I’ve been thinking about ways to obey that scripture about doing justice, loving, mercy, and walking humbly with God. It’s generally pretty easy to walk humbly with God when you have insecurities and anxiety—Yay for weaknesses we can boast about. However the justice bit can be a tad more difficult.

Dare I care about the poor cotton farmers who are killing themselves just to make my shirts?

It’s a tough one when there aren’t a ton of alternatives. I’ll keep up the search for fair-trade cotton, keep my clothes as long as I can, and continue to frequent the church rummage sales. However, I can’t figure out a way to cut myself off from the system completely yet.

Thankfully there are pioneers out there like Shane who are blazing trails that the rest of us can follow, even if we do a fraction of the program, they have something to teach us. One of these pioneers is Jenna Woginrich, a writer and web designer who lives on her own little sustainable farm and makes her own things, pulling out of the consumer lifestyle.

Her book documenting her home-made switch is called Made from Scratch: Discovering the Pleasure of Handmade Life.

There are plenty of reasons why a book like this is worth reading. For our own sake, we need to save money and live simply. Our consumer economy is also not sustainable for the long-term, so we need to figure out ways to sustain ourselves other than working longer hours.

However, there are moral dimensions here worth exploring, especially if you’re a Christian who believes the earth is the Lord’s and everything in it. Production itself is causing pollution, to say nothing of the justice concerns with working conditions for many laborers. I’m not saying we need to unplug completely or that overseas labor equals abuse, however we need to carefully think through the implications of our purchases. Sometimes we may not be able to avoid it, but I’m thankful that someone like Jenna can give us stories about alternative ways to live.

One of the neat things about this book by Jenna is she lives a few minutes away from us in the next town over. In fact, her book is for sale at the local general store. I think I’ll need to purchase her book…

… Although, I could make my own book from scratch. (sorry for the lame author joke)