Immigration
© Rev. Joseph M Cherry
Written for and delivered to
The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Stanislaus County
March 25th 2012.
I’m not one for reality television.
I was actually pretty horrified when Survivor debuted 13 years ago. It seemed to bring out and display only the very characteristics that I disliked in people, and then glorified and rewarded them.
Perhaps it’s because I’m the victim of my progressive education as a child. In my brand new elementary school, where coincidentally my own Dad had poured the concrete for the floors, we played cooperative, not competitive games largely. Sure, there was dodge ball, but it was mostly games like the one where there’s a giant parachute in the gym and a lot of balls get thrown into it, and the object is to keep the balls bouncing in there for as long as possible.
Maybe Survivor, the Bachelor, Bridzillas are just at odds with my undergirding theology of Hope. My belief that people are basically good, looking to do good in the world.
Even though I love to sing, I don’t even watch American Idol or The Voice.
But one show that is based in reality hooked me from it’s first episode. Actually, there are two shows. The first is RuPaul’s Drag Race, but that’s not the one I really want to talk about.
Do you all remember the tv show Friends? Lisa Kudrow played Phoebe (and sometimes her twin sister Ursula.) Like many women who have played dumb blonds on screen, both silver and lcd, Ms. Kudrow is a lot smarter than the women she played.
Lisa Kudrow is one of the executive producers of a show called “Who Do You Think You Are?” Now in it’s third season and I have not missed a single episode.
In this show, celebrities discovered the story of their family history, aided by history nerds and genealogists. What could be more fun than that? There’s no voting off. There’s no “quick challenges.”
There’s a lot of “I didn’t know that!” and “I can’t imagine that!” And also there is a strong sense that each person gets, about their own place in our American history.
Our American story is sort of messy. A lot of people have been exploited and many continue to be exploited to the benefit of few.
One of my favorite moments in each episode of Who Do You Think You Are, is when celebrities reach deep into their family’s story, and find out how they came to this country.
Not-so surprisingly, almost none of their ancestors came to this country because they were wealthy, well-positioned and welcomed in their own land. And obviously in the case of almost all Afro-Americans, the story is quite violent. Sadly, most African Americans looking into the past of their family run into a wall about 1860, because slaves were never listed in census records by name. The most you’d get is “Male, aged 12.” There are exceptions, of course. One celebrity, Blaire Underwood found out that his people were free blacks going back to a woman named Amy Ombles, born about 1760. It was very moving to watch Mr. Underwood learn that there had been free black people in this country prior to the Emancipation.
I keep hoping that Who Do You Think You Are? will start alternating a celebrity and a regular person, because I think it would be awesome for people to begin to see that this story of immigration is, in a very real way, our story.
Every person in this sanctuary owes their existence to someone who left where they came from to seek a better life. Even in the case, the difficult to talk about case, of African Americans, this is true. According to a study from University of Pennsylvania and Cornell:
A median proportion of European ancestry in African-Americans of 18.5 percent, with large variation among individuals. The predominately African origin of X chromosomes of African-Americans. This is consistent with the pattern of gene flow where mothers were mostly of African ancestry while fathers were either of African or European ancestry.
Said another way, the most frequently “hit” percentage of European genes among our African American friends and neighbors is 1/5th white, mostly along the men of their families.
Which means that even, like all of us, the history of our family can be a difficult truth for African Americans to deal with.
Some of our ancestors came to this continent 14,000 years ago, some of us came within our own lifetime.
Like death, it seems that migration, is a universal truth.
My own family has been in this country for less than 100 years. My Polish ancestors arrived here after the Bolshevik revolution in Russia. Poland has had, at times, very fluid borders, so we’re not sure if we’re actually Russian or Polish by border, but my Busha spoke Polish. My grandparents immigrated through Ellis Island as young people, and met and married in Hamtramack, an island city inside Detroit. (Meaning it’s completely surrounded by Detroit.) There my grandfather changed our last name from Wisniewski to Cherry.
My maternal family came from Mexico. My Great-grandfather was Jose Molina Cortez, for whom I was named. According to his journals, he walked from the jungles of Chihauhua to Mexico City and then into Texas. There he met my Great Grandmother, Celia Castanada. I was blessedly lucky enough to know and love both of my Great Grandparents before they died. Eventually, the family moved to Pittsburg and Detroit.
Which is of course where my parents met and married.
So there, you have the very short version of my family’s immigration to this country.
What is your own story of immigration? I hope that you will share it with others during our social hour.
In 2009 I had an experience that really opened my eyes to what the life of an immigrant might be.
In 2004 I’d had an 8-day vacation abroad, for the first time. My Mom and I went to Germany to celebrate my bachelor’s degree. Mom used all of her sky-miles to get us there, and while we were there we lived very frugally, which made the whole thing possible. But it was an amazing time. But it was only eight days, and nothing much of note happened. It was a touristy dream. Even though we were abroad, it was a country in which I spoke the language passably, and also many, many Germans were happy to practice their English with me and us.
When I went to England for the summer of 2009, it was a slightly different story. It wasn’t just 8 days, with the relative security of my Mom with me. Even if, when we were in Germany, she didn’t speak their language and I had to serve as translator, having the tether of my Mom with me meant something.
In the UK I was alone. I had no family. Even though I had become used to living 400 miles from my family while I lived in Chicago for 15 years, this was very different.
And I wasn’t completely alone. I had gone to serve a church there for the summer, and like Unitarians around the globe, these were my people.
Shortly after my arrival, I was at a café on the High Street in town and someone stole my backpack. The owner of the café was outraged. Her face burned with shame that someone would steal a backpack from within her café, and from someone who was a visitor to her village. She told me that I should call the police and make a report.
And then it occurred to me: I didn’t know how to call the police.
Even in that relatively secure moment in time, where I spoke the language, where I had the telephone number of my supervisor, my host and the president of the congregation programmed into my phone, my heart dropped.
I didn’t even know how to call the police.
When I landed in Manchester, the airport signs said “Welcome to Manchester!” They didn’t say “Welcome to Manchester, and if you need to contact the police, fire or ambulance, dial 999!”
It was in this moment of almost complete security that my heart began feel responsible for helping the immigrants and visitors to my own country in a very real way.
What, I asked myself, would I do if I were back in The States, where I didn’t speak the language, what would I have done? Where my very inability to speak the language clearly and well, could well be met with out-right hostility? What would I have done if my skin were darker, would I help have been offered so readily and sincerely?
It’s moments like that one that stick with you for the rest of your life.
While I did my internship in Vancouver, British Columbia, I spent 11 months living as an immigrant. Again, though, I spoke the language, and my light skin opened almost every door. I could not vote, and I felt that I really had no business commenting on politics. It would’ve taken me 6 months of my one-year stay to get a Canadian credit card, and it took me 3 months to be eligible for their universal health care. There were whole sections of public life that I did not engage in, because I was trying to be a good guest.
And everywhere I went, I had to carry my passport with me. Stapled into my passport was my Guest Worker Visa, allowing me to be there legally.
And I thought, what must it be to be in a country where you’re “illegal”?
Our country is far from a perfect place. Ask just about any of its citizens, and they’ll tell you just how far off from perfect they think we are. Depending on where any citizen stands, there are too many laws about guns, or not enough laws about guns. Too many gay rights, not enough gay rights. Nationalized health care takes away our freedom of choice, or saves us all.
And even though we can be a violent, over-bearing nation, still immigrants flock to our borders, hoping to be allowed in to start a new life.
According to the Office of Immigration Statistics in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, from 1820 to 2010 there have been a whopping 76 million, 399 thousand, 300 and 47 persons who have sought or are seeking legal permanent status here . One or two of them are even with us, among our own little beloved community.
I was unable to find a reliable accounting of the number of African slaves brought here, and no “reliable” number exists of the people who lived here before the Europeans came.
But these seekers of legal status, children aside, most of the 76 million plus of them came here by choice.
And today there are thousands each year who try to reach our shores. They come by boat, by raft, in trucks through the deserts… Some seeking “legal” status, almost all seeking a better life.
What we have here is a better life, obviously. Else why would so many people risk their life’s savings, discovery, dirty dealings and their very lives to come here?
What would it take for you to give some one you don’t know, some one you only know of because they deal in illegal human trafficking, and give him all your money, and then sit in a dark, windowless truck trailer, through the desert?
What would it take for you to do that?
For you to do that to your children?
I have my own personal views about this topic of immigration, and I don’t think that the pulpit is the place for me to talk about them. I feel like one of the minister’s jobs in our faith is to raise awareness, to provide a way for our congregations to consider questions in new ways, and then to step back and let our people, our people, do the work they feel called to do. To answer the calls they feel called to answer.
Here is my question to you: What are you called to do for and with these people who are willing to risk everything they have in order to go to a place that doesn’t want them, where they don’t speak the language well—if at all, knowing their job prospects will be limited to the most menial of tasks?
What might you be called to do to help?
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Renewal
Renewal
© Rev. Joseph M Cherry
Written for and delivered to
The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Stanislaus County
March 18th 2012.
In the next week, there will be four important holidays for four differing groups of religious people, and yet all four share some common inspirations.
Those folks who share an earth-centered spirituality will celebrate the Summer Solstice, which happens on the 21st. This is probably the celebration that we’re most familiar with.
But there are three others, celebrated primarily in the area known commonly as the Middle East.
For the Zoroastrians, the Baha’i and the Shi’i, this is the week of Naw-Ruz.
Zoroastrians are credited by many religious scholars as the originators of monotheism, the belief in one god, as opposed the to then, apparently universal practice of polytheism. The practitioners of this faith were the first, who left written evidence, who believed in the dichotomy of Good and Evil.
This ancient Persian/Iranian faith celebrates Naw-Ruz in relationship to the Spring Equinox.
The origins of Naw-Ruz are unknown but it obviously began as a pastoral fertility festival. Legend attributes its foundation to the mythical antediluvian king Jamshid. Naw-Ruz and Mihrajan, the corresponding festival of the autumnal equinox in September, are the two great annual festivals of Zoroastrianism. Originally a somber festival dedicated to the spirits of the dead was held for five days ten days before Naw-Ruz, followed by a further five days corresponding to the Bahá'í Ayyam-i-Ha. Later Naw-Ruz gradually became a secular holiday and as such it continued to be observed even after the triumph of Islam in Iran. Muslim kings in Iran, like their Zoroastrian predecessors, celebrated Naw-Ruz with great magnificence.
Though an ancient religion, Zoroastrians are still a practicing minority religion in modern-day Iran.
A less ancient faith, Baha’i, also has it’s origins in Persia/Iran, and also celebrates Naw-Ruz, but the expression of the Baha’i version is slightly different from that of it’s Zoroastrian beginning.
Celebrated at the same time of year, celebrating also a renewal of the year and relationship to the divine, one activity for Naw-Ruz is that during the night of Naw-Ruz each believer was to recite 361 times the verse `God beareth witness that there is no God but Him, the Ineffable, the Self-Subsistent'; and during the day, `God beareth witness that there is no God but Him, the Precious, the Beloved'.
Shi`i traditions attributed to the Imams endorsed the observance of Naw-Ruz, which was, it was said, the day of many events of great religious significance, among them God's first covenant with mankind, the first rising of the sun, the grounding of Noah's ark on Ararat, Gabriel's first appearance to Muhammad, the destruction of the idols in the Ka`bih by `Ali, Muhammad's appointment of `Ali as His successor, the appearance of the Qa'im, and the final triumph of the Qa'im over the Antichrist. Such traditions echoed similar accounts of Naw-Ruz found in Zoroastrian literature.
With all of these rituals of renewal, what shall we make of them?
Spring has arrived, right? At least by the calendar, and outside the trees are budding, and my little tomato plant is struggling through it’s toddler months so that it can produce fruit for my salads. The sun is warmer, we’ve had daylight savings time.
But what shall we do to mark this time?
The Baha’i have a ritual in which they take some of the new growth seedlings of sprouted lentils and toss them into a moving stream, so that along with the offering of new plant life, their trouble and sorrows from the past year may be taken away. Naw-Ruz after all, begins their new calendar year.
A calendar year in a church is full of life and living. There have been things to celebrate and things to mourn.
You are invited to come up to the front, take a stone, invisibly write something on it that you wish to let go of from the past year, and silently place it into this bowl. If you’re not able to come to the front comfortably, I will bring a stone to you, and place the stone into the bowl for you.
In this bowl are sorrows from our past year. They are probably not all of the sorrows, because some will have been forgotten, and not remembered until later today, or tomorrow.
Like our Baha’i, Zoastarian, Shi’i, and Earth-Centered friends, this week we mark the turning of our world, the turning of our lives and new beginnings.
What can a fresh start, a new beginning mean to us?
Life is continually offering us opportunities to set new things in motion…to reboot our process, to try again. Yes, on some level, each of these rituals of Spring are man-made and artificial, and yes they can be ignored, discounted and set aside.
What I find interesting about them though is that these rituals exist at all. Why create them? It would be easy to dismiss their creation as something from a time when humans were not as wise as we, but I think that’d be foolish.
Clearly, these rituals were created to answer a deep human need, or else they wouldn’t have lasted as long as they have.
How are you, in your own life, meeting your deeply human needs? Are you meeting them at all? Do you even address them?
Well, the good news is, this is just the week for a renewal! Millions of people are, just this week, reminding themselves to release the sorrow of the past and refocus on that which important to them. Why not allow yourself to join them in their intentional, mindful, caring attendance to their lives?
While you may not agree theologically with the statements: `God beareth witness that there is no God but Him, the Ineffable, the Self-Subsistent'; or, `God beareth witness that there is no God but Him, the Precious, the Beloved'; perhaps you can find some other phrase that speaks to the deepest recesses of your own soul, and set about repeating them.
For example, try highlighting the gratitude you have in your life. Perhaps during the day you could say “I am grateful for these, my favorite pair of shoes” during a quiet moment. Treat it like a mantra…say it ten times to yourself.
In the evening, find another thing to be mindful about “Thank you, Spirit of Life and Love, for the opportunity to have heard the peals of laughter from children in my neighborhood,” or “Today was a difficult day for me, but it is over and tomorrow a new day begins.”
We are not the captains of our own ships. There are things beyond our control, and there is grace, and good fortune as well. We owe it to ourselves to choose a fresh new day as many days as we can.
May we remember that even as a renewal is not a magical cure to heal the past, to disperse current troubles and woes, it is a mindful, intentional and spiritual act that we can do to help us live lives with deep satisfaction.
© Rev. Joseph M Cherry
Written for and delivered to
The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Stanislaus County
March 18th 2012.
In the next week, there will be four important holidays for four differing groups of religious people, and yet all four share some common inspirations.
Those folks who share an earth-centered spirituality will celebrate the Summer Solstice, which happens on the 21st. This is probably the celebration that we’re most familiar with.
But there are three others, celebrated primarily in the area known commonly as the Middle East.
For the Zoroastrians, the Baha’i and the Shi’i, this is the week of Naw-Ruz.
Zoroastrians are credited by many religious scholars as the originators of monotheism, the belief in one god, as opposed the to then, apparently universal practice of polytheism. The practitioners of this faith were the first, who left written evidence, who believed in the dichotomy of Good and Evil.
This ancient Persian/Iranian faith celebrates Naw-Ruz in relationship to the Spring Equinox.
The origins of Naw-Ruz are unknown but it obviously began as a pastoral fertility festival. Legend attributes its foundation to the mythical antediluvian king Jamshid. Naw-Ruz and Mihrajan, the corresponding festival of the autumnal equinox in September, are the two great annual festivals of Zoroastrianism. Originally a somber festival dedicated to the spirits of the dead was held for five days ten days before Naw-Ruz, followed by a further five days corresponding to the Bahá'í Ayyam-i-Ha. Later Naw-Ruz gradually became a secular holiday and as such it continued to be observed even after the triumph of Islam in Iran. Muslim kings in Iran, like their Zoroastrian predecessors, celebrated Naw-Ruz with great magnificence.
Though an ancient religion, Zoroastrians are still a practicing minority religion in modern-day Iran.
A less ancient faith, Baha’i, also has it’s origins in Persia/Iran, and also celebrates Naw-Ruz, but the expression of the Baha’i version is slightly different from that of it’s Zoroastrian beginning.
Celebrated at the same time of year, celebrating also a renewal of the year and relationship to the divine, one activity for Naw-Ruz is that during the night of Naw-Ruz each believer was to recite 361 times the verse `God beareth witness that there is no God but Him, the Ineffable, the Self-Subsistent'; and during the day, `God beareth witness that there is no God but Him, the Precious, the Beloved'.
Shi`i traditions attributed to the Imams endorsed the observance of Naw-Ruz, which was, it was said, the day of many events of great religious significance, among them God's first covenant with mankind, the first rising of the sun, the grounding of Noah's ark on Ararat, Gabriel's first appearance to Muhammad, the destruction of the idols in the Ka`bih by `Ali, Muhammad's appointment of `Ali as His successor, the appearance of the Qa'im, and the final triumph of the Qa'im over the Antichrist. Such traditions echoed similar accounts of Naw-Ruz found in Zoroastrian literature.
With all of these rituals of renewal, what shall we make of them?
Spring has arrived, right? At least by the calendar, and outside the trees are budding, and my little tomato plant is struggling through it’s toddler months so that it can produce fruit for my salads. The sun is warmer, we’ve had daylight savings time.
But what shall we do to mark this time?
The Baha’i have a ritual in which they take some of the new growth seedlings of sprouted lentils and toss them into a moving stream, so that along with the offering of new plant life, their trouble and sorrows from the past year may be taken away. Naw-Ruz after all, begins their new calendar year.
A calendar year in a church is full of life and living. There have been things to celebrate and things to mourn.
You are invited to come up to the front, take a stone, invisibly write something on it that you wish to let go of from the past year, and silently place it into this bowl. If you’re not able to come to the front comfortably, I will bring a stone to you, and place the stone into the bowl for you.
In this bowl are sorrows from our past year. They are probably not all of the sorrows, because some will have been forgotten, and not remembered until later today, or tomorrow.
Like our Baha’i, Zoastarian, Shi’i, and Earth-Centered friends, this week we mark the turning of our world, the turning of our lives and new beginnings.
What can a fresh start, a new beginning mean to us?
Life is continually offering us opportunities to set new things in motion…to reboot our process, to try again. Yes, on some level, each of these rituals of Spring are man-made and artificial, and yes they can be ignored, discounted and set aside.
What I find interesting about them though is that these rituals exist at all. Why create them? It would be easy to dismiss their creation as something from a time when humans were not as wise as we, but I think that’d be foolish.
Clearly, these rituals were created to answer a deep human need, or else they wouldn’t have lasted as long as they have.
How are you, in your own life, meeting your deeply human needs? Are you meeting them at all? Do you even address them?
Well, the good news is, this is just the week for a renewal! Millions of people are, just this week, reminding themselves to release the sorrow of the past and refocus on that which important to them. Why not allow yourself to join them in their intentional, mindful, caring attendance to their lives?
While you may not agree theologically with the statements: `God beareth witness that there is no God but Him, the Ineffable, the Self-Subsistent'; or, `God beareth witness that there is no God but Him, the Precious, the Beloved'; perhaps you can find some other phrase that speaks to the deepest recesses of your own soul, and set about repeating them.
For example, try highlighting the gratitude you have in your life. Perhaps during the day you could say “I am grateful for these, my favorite pair of shoes” during a quiet moment. Treat it like a mantra…say it ten times to yourself.
In the evening, find another thing to be mindful about “Thank you, Spirit of Life and Love, for the opportunity to have heard the peals of laughter from children in my neighborhood,” or “Today was a difficult day for me, but it is over and tomorrow a new day begins.”
We are not the captains of our own ships. There are things beyond our control, and there is grace, and good fortune as well. We owe it to ourselves to choose a fresh new day as many days as we can.
May we remember that even as a renewal is not a magical cure to heal the past, to disperse current troubles and woes, it is a mindful, intentional and spiritual act that we can do to help us live lives with deep satisfaction.
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Poison Apple
Poison Apple
Rev. Joseph M Cherry
Written for and delivered to
The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Stanislaus County
March 4th 2012.
I have a confession to make, in high school, I coveted a pair of bowling shoes from a bowling alley. I wore my oldest, ugliest tennis shoes to the alley, rented the shoes and many times was tempted to leave with them after bowling three terrible games.
There, now you know my dark secret.
I thought they were super cool, with their tri-colored leather uppers, and the number on the back indicated the size in a little white circle. I wanted to wear them to school.
See, I had been looking to buy myself a pair of them for months. MONTHS. Do any of you recall the days before the internet? When you couldn’t just google “bowling shoes” and have vendors pop up with websites for you to buy your heart’s desire?
When I was in high school, Tim Berners Lee, the British Unitarian who gave birth to the World Wide Web, hadn’t done so yet.
We used to use these things called “the Yellow Pages,” in which businesses were filed by subject “washing machines,” “dog grooming” and the like. I could not find “awesome, used bowling shoes” anywhere in there.
My search for said shoes though, was how I discovered one of the loves of my life: Thrift Stores.
Yes, it’s true, I was one of those suburban teenagers who helped make thrift stores cool. Or so I tell myself. I had several stores that haunted on a regular basis, much to the horror of my parents who, truth be told, had grown up fairly poor and worked hard their whole lives so they’d never have to shop in one again.
For me they were places of adventure. How many here remember the song “Second Hand Rose,” from Funny Girl?
Father has a business strictly second hand
Everything from toothpicks to a baby grand
Stuff in our apartment came from father's store
Even things I'm wearing someone wore before
I’m wearing second hand hats
Second hand clothes
That’s why they call me
Second hand Rose
Even Jake the Plummer, he's the man I adore
Had the nerve to tell me he's been married before!
Everyone knows that I'm just Second hand Rose
From Second avenue.
I always especially liked the line about Jake the Plummer.
I remember seeing in a movie once, a scene where someone examines a lost button, and she muses about the button’s story. Who had owned the button before, what had the button seen in it’s travels? And the character thinks of giving this new-to-her button a new lease on life by sewing it to her sweater.
This is how I felt about thrift stores while I was in high school. “Give me the luxuries of life and I will gladly do without the necessities,” Frank Lloyd Wright famously pronounced. Actually, I still might edit Frank’s quote “Give me the second-hand luxuries of life…”
When I was in seminary, I was inspired by the song “Second Hand Rose” and started a blog “Second Hand Joe.” I was going to try a to spend one year buying things only in thrift and charity shops, and document my spiritual journey in so doing. There were exceptions, of course. I wasn’t going to underwear and socks there, and I clearly some items must be purchased new, like food. The other exception was supplies for school. One doesn’t find many second hand copies of “The Almost Church” in thrift stores. But my classmates and I did go on a plan of book sharing and buying used copies where possible.
The rule was that I had to buy everything in thrift stores, and if I couldn’t find what I needed in a thrift store, I was then allowed to purchase this item from a fair trade source. This was pretty easy for me since at the time I worked in a Fair Trader Store in Chicago, called the Fair Trader. The store grew out of Fair Trade Coffee sales that some of the women from my home church had been doing as a fund-raiser for the church. So these three Unitarian Universalist women set up shop, hired their favorite seminarian, and we were off and running. For three years I was the perpetual “employee of the month.” This was due, not entirely, to the fact that I was the only employee.
If Fair Trade didn’t work out, I could buy the item new.
Like many great ideas in seminary, the blog didn’t last, but the practice has.
I stand before you this morning decked out completely in thrift store bargains. The computer on which I composed this sermon was second hand. Even this stole, an ordination gift from Denis, is made of shirts we purchased at thrift store.
Here I’ll quote Ralph Waldo Emerson, from his essay Social Aims: “The sense of being well-dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquility which religion is powerless to bestow.”
I believe in trying to be a responsible consumer. It’s a big part of the reason I thrift shop so much. Not only am I saving money, I’m giving something a new lease on life AND keeping it out of the landfill.
But sometimes it’s difficult.
Beyond the constraints of time and a potential dearth well-stocked thrift stores that have clothes that are just your size, some things just don’t come used.
Shortly after we arrived in town, we were at the ReStore, thift shop, which benefits Habitat for Humanity. We didn’t find anything to buy there, but up McHenry, there was a sign for Stetson Hats. I’ve been looking for a nice summer hat to both cover my bald spot, and to help me look a little more “suave.” So we popped into Rossini’s Men’s Store, where we looked at hats and there were some suits there. Suits are definitely “suave” so I inquired as to the prices of the suits. Because let’s face it, I’m never going to find a suit at the Hope Chest.
I found out that I could buy a new suit for $199, which is a really good price.
And then, thinking back to my Second Hand Joe blog, I realized that I should ask where it was made.
“Bengladesh.”
Crud.
In my mind all I could see where sweatshops and little children working from dawn to dusk for pennies an hour.
I noticed that they also sell American, Union Made suits. Starting at $799.
But where do the components of the suit come from? The fabric, the thread, etc. The store owner couldn’t tell me. I assumed “Bengladesh” or a similar place.
And therein lies the difficulty: which such universal and global trading, how does one really know who the good guys and the bad guys of commerce are?
For about 2 years now, I have longed for an iPad. I’m convinced that it will make my work easier, and what’s more awesome than delivering sermons to a UU Congregation paper-free?!? But unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that iPads are made in China. The factory there is called FoxConn has been in the news for a while now, with two explosions, and living conditions so terrible that they company has installed “suicide nets” around their dormitories.
This has kept me from purchasing what I believe would be a useful tool in my work.
On February 21st, ABC News reporter Bill Weir was invited to look at the factory . Coinciding with Mr. Weir’s visit, the first Western reporter allowed with cameras into the facility, The Fair Labor Association, a trade group was invited to audit the factory where Apple products are made.
I won’t share the whole report to you, but it turns out that FoxConn pays a pretty good wage for the area, which Apple has requested be doubled, and the suicide rate in the factory town, so to speak, is actually lower than the suicide rate in the general populace, and the factory has psychologists there. This was not always the case, but the FoxConn executives have begun to re-assess their model and made adjustments to it.
After watching the report, I’m feeling less conflicted about buying the iPad 3 when it comes out later this week. Or so the rumors go. If the iPad 3 doesn’t come out this week, don’t blame me, blame applerumors.com for misleading me.
When I was hired to come to Modesto, we bought a new car. Well, a new-to-us car, of course. New car shopping was a harrying experience for me. I wanted the Honda reliability I had so enjoyed with my Civic, but it my heart I’m still a boy from Detroit, and oh the waves of guilt and shame I felt over-coming me when I thought of buying a new, foreign car! It does little to help me rationalize my fears by telling me what I know is true, that there is so much globalization in the auto industry that no car is entirely American made anymore. So we bought our new car, new-to-us. What’s the dumb phrase they use now instead of used? “Pre-owned?” In buying my Honda used, I’m not contributing to the downfall of my hometown of Detroit, I’m actually only buying the result of someone else’s “sin.” Still, I’m putting my money where….
Where my mouth is.
Where we spend our money has a lot to say about our values.
This is not to say that any of us has the right to run around throwing our judgment onto others for the things they purchase. Far from that.
But if we’re careful consumers, and we have the luxury of time to think about what we are purchasing, when we look around ourselves, what matters to us can be seen.
What is less obvious, perhaps, is what we haven’t acquired.
See? I’m still using paper.
Being an ethical consumer takes more work than just popping into Tarjhay and buying the nearest thing at hand. Sometimes it involves researching what you’re buying, and asking if you really need that thing you’d like.
Being an ethical consumer is also important, though perhaps more difficult, when your economic picture isn’t so rosy. Yes, it’s lovely to have high, lofty ideals about only purchasing free-range, grain feed chicken-eggs, like the ones that come from John and Claire’s farm. But let’s face it, without John and Claire, many of us wouldn’t be able to enjoy good-quality, happy-chicken born eggs.
If you need a new suit for a job interview, and money is tight, you may well really believe that you should only purchase an American made, union made suit, but the cost could just be out of reach.
So, what can we do?
We can do our best. That’s all we can do, right? We can do our best, and really, only after searching your own heart, can you know what your best is. No one can define that for you.
So go forth and do your best! In so doing you will honor your own spirit, and you will be celebrated by those who matter. Everyday each of us walks through this journey called “life.” We can, and must, choose to live the best life we’re able. To drink from the cup of life, deeply.
In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle wrote: We become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions.
No doubt we will become ethical consumers by performing actions of ethical consumption.
Each of us is the hero of our own story. Go, and make your story one that inspires.
Rev. Joseph M Cherry
Written for and delivered to
The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Stanislaus County
March 4th 2012.
I have a confession to make, in high school, I coveted a pair of bowling shoes from a bowling alley. I wore my oldest, ugliest tennis shoes to the alley, rented the shoes and many times was tempted to leave with them after bowling three terrible games.
There, now you know my dark secret.
I thought they were super cool, with their tri-colored leather uppers, and the number on the back indicated the size in a little white circle. I wanted to wear them to school.
See, I had been looking to buy myself a pair of them for months. MONTHS. Do any of you recall the days before the internet? When you couldn’t just google “bowling shoes” and have vendors pop up with websites for you to buy your heart’s desire?
When I was in high school, Tim Berners Lee, the British Unitarian who gave birth to the World Wide Web, hadn’t done so yet.
We used to use these things called “the Yellow Pages,” in which businesses were filed by subject “washing machines,” “dog grooming” and the like. I could not find “awesome, used bowling shoes” anywhere in there.
My search for said shoes though, was how I discovered one of the loves of my life: Thrift Stores.
Yes, it’s true, I was one of those suburban teenagers who helped make thrift stores cool. Or so I tell myself. I had several stores that haunted on a regular basis, much to the horror of my parents who, truth be told, had grown up fairly poor and worked hard their whole lives so they’d never have to shop in one again.
For me they were places of adventure. How many here remember the song “Second Hand Rose,” from Funny Girl?
Father has a business strictly second hand
Everything from toothpicks to a baby grand
Stuff in our apartment came from father's store
Even things I'm wearing someone wore before
I’m wearing second hand hats
Second hand clothes
That’s why they call me
Second hand Rose
Even Jake the Plummer, he's the man I adore
Had the nerve to tell me he's been married before!
Everyone knows that I'm just Second hand Rose
From Second avenue.
I always especially liked the line about Jake the Plummer.
I remember seeing in a movie once, a scene where someone examines a lost button, and she muses about the button’s story. Who had owned the button before, what had the button seen in it’s travels? And the character thinks of giving this new-to-her button a new lease on life by sewing it to her sweater.
This is how I felt about thrift stores while I was in high school. “Give me the luxuries of life and I will gladly do without the necessities,” Frank Lloyd Wright famously pronounced. Actually, I still might edit Frank’s quote “Give me the second-hand luxuries of life…”
When I was in seminary, I was inspired by the song “Second Hand Rose” and started a blog “Second Hand Joe.” I was going to try a to spend one year buying things only in thrift and charity shops, and document my spiritual journey in so doing. There were exceptions, of course. I wasn’t going to underwear and socks there, and I clearly some items must be purchased new, like food. The other exception was supplies for school. One doesn’t find many second hand copies of “The Almost Church” in thrift stores. But my classmates and I did go on a plan of book sharing and buying used copies where possible.
The rule was that I had to buy everything in thrift stores, and if I couldn’t find what I needed in a thrift store, I was then allowed to purchase this item from a fair trade source. This was pretty easy for me since at the time I worked in a Fair Trader Store in Chicago, called the Fair Trader. The store grew out of Fair Trade Coffee sales that some of the women from my home church had been doing as a fund-raiser for the church. So these three Unitarian Universalist women set up shop, hired their favorite seminarian, and we were off and running. For three years I was the perpetual “employee of the month.” This was due, not entirely, to the fact that I was the only employee.
If Fair Trade didn’t work out, I could buy the item new.
Like many great ideas in seminary, the blog didn’t last, but the practice has.
I stand before you this morning decked out completely in thrift store bargains. The computer on which I composed this sermon was second hand. Even this stole, an ordination gift from Denis, is made of shirts we purchased at thrift store.
Here I’ll quote Ralph Waldo Emerson, from his essay Social Aims: “The sense of being well-dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquility which religion is powerless to bestow.”
I believe in trying to be a responsible consumer. It’s a big part of the reason I thrift shop so much. Not only am I saving money, I’m giving something a new lease on life AND keeping it out of the landfill.
But sometimes it’s difficult.
Beyond the constraints of time and a potential dearth well-stocked thrift stores that have clothes that are just your size, some things just don’t come used.
Shortly after we arrived in town, we were at the ReStore, thift shop, which benefits Habitat for Humanity. We didn’t find anything to buy there, but up McHenry, there was a sign for Stetson Hats. I’ve been looking for a nice summer hat to both cover my bald spot, and to help me look a little more “suave.” So we popped into Rossini’s Men’s Store, where we looked at hats and there were some suits there. Suits are definitely “suave” so I inquired as to the prices of the suits. Because let’s face it, I’m never going to find a suit at the Hope Chest.
I found out that I could buy a new suit for $199, which is a really good price.
And then, thinking back to my Second Hand Joe blog, I realized that I should ask where it was made.
“Bengladesh.”
Crud.
In my mind all I could see where sweatshops and little children working from dawn to dusk for pennies an hour.
I noticed that they also sell American, Union Made suits. Starting at $799.
But where do the components of the suit come from? The fabric, the thread, etc. The store owner couldn’t tell me. I assumed “Bengladesh” or a similar place.
And therein lies the difficulty: which such universal and global trading, how does one really know who the good guys and the bad guys of commerce are?
For about 2 years now, I have longed for an iPad. I’m convinced that it will make my work easier, and what’s more awesome than delivering sermons to a UU Congregation paper-free?!? But unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that iPads are made in China. The factory there is called FoxConn has been in the news for a while now, with two explosions, and living conditions so terrible that they company has installed “suicide nets” around their dormitories.
This has kept me from purchasing what I believe would be a useful tool in my work.
On February 21st, ABC News reporter Bill Weir was invited to look at the factory . Coinciding with Mr. Weir’s visit, the first Western reporter allowed with cameras into the facility, The Fair Labor Association, a trade group was invited to audit the factory where Apple products are made.
I won’t share the whole report to you, but it turns out that FoxConn pays a pretty good wage for the area, which Apple has requested be doubled, and the suicide rate in the factory town, so to speak, is actually lower than the suicide rate in the general populace, and the factory has psychologists there. This was not always the case, but the FoxConn executives have begun to re-assess their model and made adjustments to it.
After watching the report, I’m feeling less conflicted about buying the iPad 3 when it comes out later this week. Or so the rumors go. If the iPad 3 doesn’t come out this week, don’t blame me, blame applerumors.com for misleading me.
When I was hired to come to Modesto, we bought a new car. Well, a new-to-us car, of course. New car shopping was a harrying experience for me. I wanted the Honda reliability I had so enjoyed with my Civic, but it my heart I’m still a boy from Detroit, and oh the waves of guilt and shame I felt over-coming me when I thought of buying a new, foreign car! It does little to help me rationalize my fears by telling me what I know is true, that there is so much globalization in the auto industry that no car is entirely American made anymore. So we bought our new car, new-to-us. What’s the dumb phrase they use now instead of used? “Pre-owned?” In buying my Honda used, I’m not contributing to the downfall of my hometown of Detroit, I’m actually only buying the result of someone else’s “sin.” Still, I’m putting my money where….
Where my mouth is.
Where we spend our money has a lot to say about our values.
This is not to say that any of us has the right to run around throwing our judgment onto others for the things they purchase. Far from that.
But if we’re careful consumers, and we have the luxury of time to think about what we are purchasing, when we look around ourselves, what matters to us can be seen.
What is less obvious, perhaps, is what we haven’t acquired.
See? I’m still using paper.
Being an ethical consumer takes more work than just popping into Tarjhay and buying the nearest thing at hand. Sometimes it involves researching what you’re buying, and asking if you really need that thing you’d like.
Being an ethical consumer is also important, though perhaps more difficult, when your economic picture isn’t so rosy. Yes, it’s lovely to have high, lofty ideals about only purchasing free-range, grain feed chicken-eggs, like the ones that come from John and Claire’s farm. But let’s face it, without John and Claire, many of us wouldn’t be able to enjoy good-quality, happy-chicken born eggs.
If you need a new suit for a job interview, and money is tight, you may well really believe that you should only purchase an American made, union made suit, but the cost could just be out of reach.
So, what can we do?
We can do our best. That’s all we can do, right? We can do our best, and really, only after searching your own heart, can you know what your best is. No one can define that for you.
So go forth and do your best! In so doing you will honor your own spirit, and you will be celebrated by those who matter. Everyday each of us walks through this journey called “life.” We can, and must, choose to live the best life we’re able. To drink from the cup of life, deeply.
In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle wrote: We become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions.
No doubt we will become ethical consumers by performing actions of ethical consumption.
Each of us is the hero of our own story. Go, and make your story one that inspires.
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