Fashion and Ethics: Why Should I Care and What Can I Do? by Katie Metzger

Look at the clothes you are wearing right now….Would you believe that 80-90% of what you are wearing was made in inhumane, unsustainable conditions? Well, the sad fact is, this is most often the case. Sweatshops are not a thing of the past. Buying high-end, well made clothing does not mean that it is made in different conditions than Old Navy or Walmart clothing. This is hard to swallow, and as someone who loves fashion it can seem too overwhelming to even think about. However, information and acknowledgement is where change begins. So why should you care and what can you, practically, do?

Ethical Clothing Brand: Same Thread

When discussing the issue of ethicality in the clothing industry, one may have images of sweatshops and child laborers in developing nations toiling all day in inhumane conditions. Although this image may seem extreme, it is a very real aspect of our current garment and fashion industries worldwide. Sweatshops from Bangladesh to Cambodia routinely pay their workers around $1.20 per day for their work. This is not a living wage, even in poverty stricken communities. The chronic underpayment of garment industry workers creates a cycle of poverty in already struggling communities, in turn contributing to other social issues resulting from poverty. Sweatshops are not only present in developing nations but are also a growing problem in the United States.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, in recent years up to 11,000 U.S. based factories were cited as violating workers rights and not paying laborers a minimum wage. This shows the problem of human rights violations in textile and garment factories is not only an international problem but a domestic problem as well. Additionally, many companies touted as being ethically made have had numerous sweatshop scandals. When it comes to clothing ethicality we must learn to be active, not passive, consumers of information.

In 2006, a study was done by the American Sociological Association regarding the marketability of fair trade products; this study found that an overwhelming majority of consumers would pay $1-$5 more for items they know are made in an ethical way. Although large strides towards ethical production have been made in the coffee, chocolate and food industry, the clothing industry remains hugely underserved.

Ethical Clothing Brand: Same Thread

I am someone who loves fashion and clothing. The thrill of a new dress or pair of shoes is not lost on me. But I also recognize that, as a person who believes that each human bears the image and likeness of God, I am required to evaluate and educate myself about the impact of my purchases. As I’ve become more interested in ethicality and the fashion industry I keep asking myself, “What can I, practically, do?”. Not all of us can afford to shop exclusively from fair trade clothing brands, and more often the fashion in fair trade clothing is extremely lacking. So what small changes can we make to have an impact on the clothing industry?

1. Realize that someone is paying the price for your clothing…is it you or the garment worker? Jeans should cost more than $9.99. When you come across clothing that is extremely cheap ask yourself, “what kind of production practices lend itself to producing a $3 tank top”? The answer is usually pretty obvious.

2. Inform yourself about your favorite brands. It is well-known that companies such as Forever 21, H&M, Victoria’s Secret, and Walmart have unethical supply chains. However, information is severely lacking for many brands. Do some digging online and if nothing is available, request information.

3. If you are unsure, shop local and second-hand. Finding local markets and boutiques supports your local economy and makes it easier to engage in conversation and get information. Also, second-hand and vintage shopping can be a cost-effective and fun way to go! Most of my favorite pieces in my wardrobe were found at great vintage stores. I love that shopping locally and second-hand gives me a unique wardrobe and personal style.

4. Start exploring and support fair trade fashion companies. As I stated earlier, finding fair trade clothing that is actually fashionable can be a struggle. Many fair trade clothing companies are either insanely expensive or produce clothing you wouldn’t want to wear. However, lately there has been a surge of new fashionable clothing companies that are competitively priced. Myself and my business partner are actually in the process of launching a fair  clothing brand, Same Thread, that produces fashion forward, ethical clothing that also provides economic opportunity to women in Thailand. I hope to be a part of the change towards ethically and reconciliation that I know will take place in the fashion industry. Join me!

Katie is the Co-founder and Creative Director of Same Thread, an ethical clothing brand for women, and is also on staff at Mustard Seed Associates and The Seattle School of Theology and Psychology. She is also a native Pacific Northwesterner with a passion for social justice and bringing fair trade business practices into the mainstream. In 2014 she completed her MA in International Development at Northwest University, where she focused on social enterprise and it’s capacity to economically empower women. She has a background in event planning, marketing, design and retail production. On a typical Saturday she can be found cooking, sewing, drawing, listening to records, vintage shopping, sipping whiskey and playing with her puppies.

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The Big Question We Never Ask

Over the last few weeks I have spent a lot of time asking myself What would my life look like if I gave myself totally to God? This is probably the scariest question I have ever asked, because the short answer is – very different from what it looks like now.

 Perhaps I have been reading too much about monks lately. I am really challenged not just by the rhythm of life the desert Fathers and Mothers, Celtic monks and Trappist monks today live by, but by the passion and discipline with which they adhered to their commitment. And I crave the deep intimacy so many of them seem to experience.

This is in fact the question that one of the Trappist monks in August Turak’s book Business Secrets of the Trappist Monks asks. It was the question that led him to become a monk. There is something terribly wrong with spirituality today, he says:

It is as though the materialism that has a death grip on this culture has taken our spirituality as well. Most of what’s called spiritual is actually humanistic if you think about it. People don’t want the adventure of God on his own terms or for his own sake. They want a better world, a happier life, better relationships and all the trimmings that go along with it….. We’re urged to seek God because this human good will come of it. People don’t realize “because” implies that the end is the human good and Truth (God) merely the means” (19)

So this morning again I ask myself What would it look like to seek God only for Godself, to shape my life around the craving for intimacy with God? And how willing amy I to shape my life around that quest? 

So here is where I am at.

First I know that prayer and deepening my relationship to God should take priority over everything else. Sometimes I feel I do well at this and other times work and the busy distractions of my mind overtake me. I need to establish a rhythm of prayer through the day and develop the discipline to stick with it. If I truly placed God at the centre I would make sure that I am never too busy to pray and never be too tired to listen.

Second I know that relationships – to God and to others should take priority over work. Our intern Amanda grappled with this over the summer. In her blog post on her time with us she comments: after a time of checking in and working we would come together to have lunch. I loved that there wasn’t any thought to delay lunch or to work through lunch, but rather, it was a priority to take this time to come together and replenish. Her words are an important reminder to me of this priority. I work to live, not live to work.

Third I need to take time for myself, to make space for the exercises that replenish my spiritual, emotional and physical wellbeing. Eating a healthy diet, getting regular exercise and plenty of sleep are all important priorities. Jesus’ admonish in Matthew 11: 28-30 is a constant reminder to me of the balanced and I think relaxed rhythm God intends for us.

Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”

When I get stressed out and overextended I frequently need to remind myself of this. Committing myself fully to God means recognizing my need to organize my time and my habits so that I am constantly receptive to God’s voice.

Fourth I need to take time for God’s creation. Gardening is part of the rhythm of my life. I also love to walk in the midst of God’s creation, and in the mornings I sometimes sit just soaking in the beauty of the mountains I can see out my office window.  But when I get too busy this time gets swept aside.

 

Fifth, the use of my resources would be totally in God’s control. I would give generously, joyously and enthusiastically whenever God prompted me. I would be more concerned for the needs of others than for my own wants and demands.

Most of us spend our lives striving for success rather than striving for God. Our passion for significance in the eyes of the world often far outstrips our passion for closeness to God. We consume spiritual tools in the same way we consume food, clothes and electronic gadgets.

So what would it look like for you to give yourself totally to God? I challenge you to take some time this week to reflect on this question. Let me know how God prompts you to change the rhythm of your life, the use of your resources

 

Let Us Do What Is Right – A Reflection On Martin Luther King

This morning two images have merged in my mind. This Martin Luther King quote from the Idealist  and another quote from Randy Woodley’s book Shalom and the Community of Creation. 

When we cease to trust the Creator for our daily provision, evil takes over and oppression occurs. Shalom, with its embedded concern for the poor, the marginalized, the animals, the birds and the earth, is the divinely preferred way for humans to live. Justice and righteousness are weapons to be employed in order to combat evil, once the systems begin to become corrupted. Truth, which I define here as following the natural paths of God’s intentions, is also one of the main weapons that humans have been given in order to fight the temptation towards self-reliance (80)

When we don’t do what is right and trust our God for provision but rely instead on the values of greed, exploitation and oppression, evil does indeed take over. We have seen it in the enslavement and genocide of peoples. We have seen it in the confiscation of native lands. And we have seen it in the destruction of the earth’s animals and habitats. My home country Australia is suffering from record breaking temperatures that have soared to over 50C or 122F. sparking hundreds of bushfires.  The government’s climate commission admits that climate change had contributed to making the extreme heat conditions and bushfires even worse.

Surely there has never been a better time to refuse to look the other way. All of us need to do what is right for those who are still oppressed and marginalized in our world. We need to do what is right to reduce emissions and reduce our consumption to contribute our small bit to the fight against climate change.

As Martin Luther King suggests, our souls suffer along with our bodies and our world when we do not do what is right. I pray that today all of us will catch a fresh glimpse of God’s incredible shalom kingdom in which all humanity is set free, creation is restored and we all live together in peace, harmony and mutual concern.

What do you think?

Have We Lost Jesus at Christmas? by James Prescott.

Christmas is coming but have we lost Jesus?

The season of Christmas is fast approaching and the frenzy of activity leading up to our Christmas celebrations is growing but have we lost Jesus in the midst of this frenzy? This morning’s post in the series Jesus Is Coming What Do We expect?  comes from James Presscott. He has been blogging about Advent and other topics on his blog JamesPrescott.co.uk.  He is also a regular guest blogger on issues of discipleship in the digital realm at digi-disciple, run by the Big Bible Project, and is currently working on a book.

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Expectations. We all have them, whether we know it or not. This is the time of year where the consumer culture we live in drives them up more than any other time – what gifts we’d like to receive, expectations of seeing relatives or eating certain types of food.

Often the last thing people expect at Christmas is Jesus.

Consumerism has taken over the festive season to such an extent that it’s easy for the very reason we celebrate to get lost in all the mayhem – in many ways that simply a highlighting of what happens the other 364 days of the year. But as Christians we should never allow Jesus to get lost.

Should it really have come to that?

Have we played a part in allowing Jesus to get lost in Christmas?

Well as Christians we’re called to stand for Jesus on this earth, to be His representatives here. To stand up for the issues He cares about, to show why His way is the best way to live through our own example.

As I reflected on this issue of what we expect from Jesus this Christmas, the one thing that I simply couldn’t escape from was the idea that it’s not about what we expect from Jesus or our expectations of Him – it’s more what He expects from us.

You see I think what we often do with our expectations of Jesus is that we put our own idea of who Jesus is in the place of Jesus, and place there what we think we should expect from Jesus, what matters to us, our own ideas of what He would care about.

Often what we don’t do is take time to ask Jesus what we should expect from Him. Nor, more crucially, what He expects from us.

One habit I don’t practice enough is simply sitting, listening to God, being silent and allowing Him to speak, letting Him set the agenda. I think it’s something we’re all prone to, especially in a consumer, merit-based society which rewards achievement and success, and encourages us to like to be right, indeed to get our value from being right, being the cleverest or smartest – or in Christian terms, the most insightful, the most in touch with God, the one more right about what Jesus would do/say/think.

We live also in a culture of selfish entitlement. It’s all about us and what we deserve, what we should own or what we have the right to.

Rarely is there space to stop and listen – to think about the other, the lesser. To think about what we can give rather than what we receive.

There has been an amazing TV advert in the UK this advent, for John Lewis, one of the major department stores in the UK.

All through the advert we’re led to believe a little child is waiting expectantly, impatient for Christmas to see what gift he will receive, what he will get for Christmas. We see him waiting, looking at clocks, struggling to sleep, eating his dinner down quickly and getting to bed early, impatient for Christmas morning.

But on Christmas morning something unexpected happens. He gets up with a flash and the first thing he does isn’t run to open his stocking or presents under the tree. No.

Instead he grabs a poorly wrapped present from his cupboard and rushes to his parents room, waking them up, so that he can give them his gift.

It’s incredibly powerful and very moving – and totally counter-cultural.

Why? Well simply because all that frustration wasn’t about what he was going to receive.

It was about the gift he was waiting to give.

I have to say, when I watched that, and every time since, it has humbled me. Chokes me up a bit, I must confess. Because watching it I was reminded of how selfish I am, how I – and probably many of us – have lost the joy of simply giving a gift, and how often we instinctively think of what we are going to receive, what we are entitled to.

We always put ourselves first and the other second, so when we see an advert where it doesn’t happen, it takes us aback, it shocks us.

It can be the same with Jesus. If He doesn’t deliver what we expect Him to, what we’ve decided He should give us or do for us, then we are disappointed or annoyed with Him – because He hasn’t met our standard of what we think we should expect.

But to me this is totally counter to the way of Jesus.

If we are truly followers of Jesus, we shouldn’t be worried about how God is going to bless us, we should be instinctively, like that little boy in the advert, thinking of how we can be a blessing to others this Christmas.

How we can be a living embodiment of Christ to others.

How we can show people through our lifestyle, behaviour, choices and attitudes that the way of Jesus is the best way to live. Pondering not what Jesus can give us, but how we can share Him – His love, His grace, His mercy – with those around us.

When we think of expectations of Jesus, we need to be turning that around, and asking ourselves what He expects of us this Christmas.

Who is He calling us to be?

What is He calling us to do?

How can we draw attention away from ourselves and point it towards Him this Christmas?

How can we show and give others the real gift of Christmas – Christ Himself?

So instead of pondering what you expect of Jesus this Christmas, how about instead turning it around and asking what He expects of you.

How about we simply remember God’s gift of Christ which was given at Christmas, and seek simply to share that gift with others?

Let us find our joy and expectations met not in the receiving but the giving of a gift.

I think if we all did that, we might find that all our expectations are met.

 

Remember Our Story by Ellen Haroutunian

chapel painting at CMU Winnipeg by Ray Dirks

This morning’s post in the series: Jesus Is Coming What Do We Expect comes from Ellen Haroutunian. It was first published on her blog as Advent 2011 Synchroblog: Remember Our Story. I feel that as we move closer to Christmas and start to feel more and more overwhelmed by the frenzied hype that beckons us to consume, consume, consume there is even more need to draw aside, reflect and remind ourselves of the story that is meant to be celebrated at this season.

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Our world is unraveling. We are seeing the deterioration of civil society in many ways. The Thanksgiving holiday week alone has been an embarrassment of aggressive consumerism with shoppers resorting to pepper spray and robbing each other at gunpoint. Black Friday is extending back into Thursday, threatening to diminish the one day we have set aside to pause our frantic lives and give thanks that some of us actually have money to spend. And that’s just the news on the small scale.

I just had a long conversation with a friend over the meaning of Christmas. It began around her assertion that Christmas has nothing to do with Jesus. When you look at Walmart at midnight on Thanksgiving, you can see that that has become very true. But the conversation was more about how many choose to celebrate Christmas either in a secular fashion or with more ancient ties to the pagan rituals that were the inspiration for the choice of December for this observance. I agreed, the holiday was birthed from engagement with other traditions and has taken on many more dimensions, much of which have nothing to do with the remembering of Jesus and the Christian story. I also agreed with her that people should be allowed to celebrate how they wish without harassment. In her insistence that Christmas has nothing to do with Jesus, I assume she wanted to show support for the millions who celebrate Christmas in various ways but have no Christian affiliation.

Even so, it’s important to remember that the shaping of the Christmas celebration (long before secular commercialization) was intentional and beautiful. Early Christians brought their story to the celebrations that they had already been observing such as pagan solstice rituals, or more likely, the Roman solar celebration. Since the beginning of time people had observed that light returns to the world as the world revolves around the sun, renewing and enlivening as it comes. The Christian story, the gospel story, is about the Light coming into the world, bringing life and healing to hurting souls. What was already observed and celebrated in rhythm with creation was then seen to hold a deeper meaning in the minds of these early Christians. As a result, the season of waiting (Advent) and the celebration of the Incarnation of God, Emmanuel, was born. Eventually, the season became known as the Feast of the Nativity or Christ’s Mass. So on the level of tradition and history, the evolution of Christmas as a holiday (holy day) is indeed about Jesus. The whole point of the discussion was that there’s no need to diminish Christian tradition to make room for other traditions, just as there’s no need to diminish other traditions to make space for the Christian.

But that discussion isn’t the true issue. I understand that there is a lot of anger towards Christians who have been offering judgment instead of the Good News. I understand that people would then choose to diminish the Christian Story as a result. That’s what people do. That’s why the world is hurting. We all diminish and deny the traditions, beliefs, needs and feelings of the other in order to make space for ourselves. However, in doing so, any empathy for the other is also lost. Lack of empathy for the other is the human heart in its most desolate state. The particular case above was about diminishing Christianity. But the way of thinking that essentially diminishes or eliminates the other, any other, has become the norm worldwide as each of our hearts shrink and pull back into self-protective bunkers. This is what our broken and hard-hearted system of justice does.

So, we live in a world in which empathy is a rare gem. More than ever, this has become a world of every man or woman for themselves, whether it be about grabbing the last waffle maker at Walmart or blocking job creating bills because you don’t like the politics of the party in power, or insisting that every conservative Christian is hate-filled and every liberal one is immoral, or that every Muslim is a terrorist. We no longer seek to listen, to know, to honor and respect each other. We no longer see the Image in one another. The idea of being our brothers’ keeper has become laughable, even amongst Jesus followers. We cannot compromise and work together because whatever the other represents is simply too offensive, too threatening, too inconvenient, too irrelevant to our personal lives. In this sense, we indeed have truly lost Jesus.

We do not need to create a “let’s take Christmas back” mentality. That is not what this post is about and it’s only another way to diminish those with whom we disagree. We do acknowledge that millions of people who are not Christians celebrate “Christmas” in various ways around the world and can remain unthreatened by that. However, the most important thing we can do is to reflect to the world the Light that has come to us. The incarnation of God-as-human is an act of ultimate empathy. God, who is Wholly Other became the other in order to love fully and to reconcile, to heal, to save. This is what love does! Love enters the story of the other. This world that has become more cold and hard and cynical than ever is desperate for a love that enters in.

Remember the Story. May we remember and act accordingly and thus bring true empathy back into the world, whether it’s at Walmart or in congress or towards Wall Street protestors or in trying to be politically correct (or not).  The world says, “Your needs and pain don’t matter to me” as it steps on the heads of the weaker brother to move upward towards bigger and better. Jesus calls us back down to our senses, back down to being our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers, back down to a life of love. And when we listen to his Story, we find that he has shown us how.

The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world. John 1:9 RSV

Definitions of Empathy:

1. The imaginative projection of a subjective state into an object so that the object appears to be infused with it (perhaps incarnates it? – my addition)

2. The action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner; also : the capacity for this.

What Are You Getting for Christmas? – Google Knows

Monday mornings especially during the season of Advent I love to browse through various blogs and websites reading Advent reflections. This morning I was disgusted to see my last night’s online Christmas shopping perfectly reflected in all the ads that appeared as I browsed. I put up with them on facebook and gmail but this is the limit as far as I am concerned.

Surprisingly I discovered that, according to the 5th Annual Consumers and Convergence survey. many consumers are quite comfortable with online tracking by retailers and service providers as long as it results in discounts on the products they are buying.

52 percent say they would be willing to let usage patterns and personal information to be tracked by advertisers if this resulted in lower product costs or free online content. In addition, 43 percent are willing to receive advertising in exchange for lower fees or service. Consumers aged 16-34 are more inclined to permit both tracking and advertising, compared to those above age 34

Read more: http://www.bradenton.com/2011/12/08/3711616/many-consumers-would-allow-online.html#ixzz1gNBX8OWd

This kind of a trend concerns me and is a very graphic indication of how insidiously we have all been overtaken by the consumer society without any protest. And it is hard to go against the flow without turning off the very technology that for many of us has become the central core of our work. Most of the time I can blank out the ads without even looking at them. But then I find myself drooling over the latest technological marvel and I realize that I am just as susceptible as the next person.

There is an antidote however. Really entering into the spirit of Advent and the coming of Christ usually effectively inoculates me against the tug of consumerism. In fact I often do my Christmas shopping weeks in advance so that I can focus more effectively on the coming of Christ during this season.

I would love to hear from others though. What keeps you focused on the real meaning of the season and enables you to stand against the constant barrage of seductive online ads telling you there is one more thing you need to buy.

Third Friday of Advent – Finding Jesus by Julie Clawson

This reflection comes from Julie Clawson.   Julie is a mom, a writer, and former pastor who lives in Austin, TX with her family.  She is the author of Everyday Justice: The Global Impact of Our Daily Choices and blogs at julieclawson.com.

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It can be easy to despise Advent.  I don’t mean the period of waiting in hopeful expectation itself, but the actual trappings of the season.  It is easy to despise the commercialism – to condemn the frenzy and the greed and see it as an obstacle to entering into a meaningful discipline if waiting.  It can be easy to despise those that jump straight into Christmas – those that deck the halls in red and green and blast Christmas carols during what should be a time of building expectation.  It is easy to despise those that leave Christ out of Christmas (or to despise those that get offended when Christ gets left out of Christmas).  From tacky decorations, to pushy sales clerks, to religious wars – the hustle and bustle and the secular trappings of the season often stand in the way of our hopeful anticipation of the Christ child.  And so we despise it all, letting Advent become a time of spite and condemnation.

I’m one of the first to question the all consuming ways of empire and consumerism, but I’ve had to humbly realize that all too often I let my animosity towards such things turn my experience of Advent into a twisted period of judgment instead of hope.  And in standing in that judgment I prevented myself from encountering Jesus in the very things I despised.  I found myself hoping to draw near to a Jesus of my own creation – a Jesus that liked the things I like and ran in the same circles as I did.  This was the Jesus I lit the candles for in hopeful expectation during Advent.

But of course, my image of Jesus was a poor reflection of the real Jesus.  Jesus was the one who was out there in the world, hanging out with the uncouth and common members of society.  He was accused of being a drunkard and glutton because he enjoyed being with and feasting with people.  Sure, he delivered challenges to his culture and found moments for retreat, but he didn’t shun it because he despised it for getting in the way of his contemplative spiritual journey.

The Messiah showed up where no one expected him to.  Born to a poor family in the unexpected dinginess of a stable, he subverted all cultural expectations.  I’ve had to learn that my narrow expectations about Jesus do not give me the right to define the modern American secular Christmas as God-forsaken.  Even there – subverting expectations – Jesus is at work.  If I desire to draw near to Christ this Advent, I need to let go of my judgment and condemnation of such places and be willing to see how Jesus appears unexpectedly even there.  My narrow conception of Advent should not lead me to a place of bitterness and hate, but instead allow me to find hope in the redemption of all things wherever it may be occurring.

Do You Believe in the Corporation?

This morning we have been talking about the challenges of the global economy and how it seduces us into its values.  We also talked about how easily we buy into the values of our secular culture – its work rhythms, its suburban lifestyles, its consumer patterns – and then living our Christianity over the top without questioning the highly flawed values on which our lives are grounded or trying to decode them.

One of the students in our Tabor Intensive here in Adelaide just made us aware of this sobering and challenging DVD – The Corporation that I would heartily recommend.  You can download it in sections from the web or purchase it online as well.

Another great resource we have talked about this morning is Mark Sayer’s The trouble with Paris: Following Jesus in a World of Plastic Promises. This is one of the best resources for critiquing the consumer culture from a Christian perspective that Tom & I have come across.  It also comes in a DVD study version which we have not seen but have been told by our students is excellent.

New Meaning For Black Friday.

Well Black Friday has claimed its victims.  The first occurred in Long Island New York at a Walmart store but I have heard of other deaths as well since then.  As my friend Peter Geel commented

Strange, isn’t it, how in Saudi Arabia, people get stampeded during the Hajj. In India, during the pilgrimage to the Mandhara Devi shrine on a holy day. In America, when Walmart opens on Black Friday.

And another comment from Carol Ann Bass

I thought about that similarity as well and also about the soccer (futball) rushes too where people perish. It seems, however, that when it happens in situations like a shopping spree attended in order to buy more” things” for a spiritual holiday like Christmas, something is terribly vacant in our morality.

And some good thoughts and reflections on the subject from Eugene Cho at Beauty and Depravity

And all done in order to keep America spending and reboot the economy.

Make Something Day Coming Friday

Make Something Day is almost upon us and has stirred quite a bit of discussion.  I love Julie Clawson’s post on the pros and cons of a day like this.  It really made me sit up and think about why I am participating in this.  I agree with her that people often make things that are useless and that in no way subverts the global economy.

What I have discovered this year however is that focusing on Make Something Day has made me think a lot more about the people that I am planning to give presents to.  And in the process I find myself reminiscing about times we have spent together, reminding myself of how special they are and praying for them as well.  It certainly beats that frenzy of buying at the last minute or on Black Friday which has sometimes characterized our Christmases in the past.  Tom is planning to refurbish a desk he has had since he was a child for our god child.  I am making a knitted purse for his sister Catie and hopefully will get that Lavender Lotion made that I am wanting to try for my garden chafed hands in the spring.  Tom already has the Aran sweater I knitted him – I just couldn’t wait until Christmas.   And I know that I will feel good everytime he wears it.

Tom's new Airan sweater

For me Make Something Day is more than a stand against the consumer culture.  It is about adding meaning to gift giving.

I personally love to receive home made items and always feel that they carry something of a person’s identity with them – maybe a little deposit of their soul. I find that when something has been made especially for me then I don’t want to throw it out. I wear it until it is rags. I think that one of the motivating forces for our consumer culture is the disconnect between the consumer and the person who produced what they are consuming. When we have relationship with the person who produced our goods our whole attitude changes. They are no longer goods to consumer but a small part of the person who made them.

On Sunday (the first Sunday of Advent) we will be decorating our Christmas tree and I particularly love to hang the home made ornaments. Some of them are those same cutsie craft articles that at other times I would despise but there is something special about ornaments that I pull out every year and hang on the tree, especially as some of the people that made them are now dead.