Today was beautiful outside. 70 degrees. Sunny. Slightly breezy. Perfect, really.
I decided to paint the outside of my house today. I've been wanting to for a long time. A while back I tried to powerwash it clean and I ended up powerwashing some of the paint off. So...it needed a new paint job.
I think I'm in over my head.
I didn't even get a whole side finished. With the first coat.
At least now I know what I'll be doing every day after work in September...and October. (Today was extra slow cuz I had to wash the house off and try out sprayers and then I decided to paint with the ole brush and roller).
But, I do have to say - I love projects. Especially the ones involving hard work and manual labor. I love the satisfaction that awaits me when I ultimately finish this insanely big task. :)
"Justice and Power must be brought together, so that whatever is just may be powerful, and whatever is powerful may be just." Blaise Pascal
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Monday, September 1, 2008
Chocolate Slavery
So I realized yesterday that I can be quite the Christian consumer. And by that, I mean that I hear lots of songs and sermons that tell me truth, but then i often still go and do whatever it is I really want to do...in spite of the truth that I just listened to. I want to stop doing that. I want to hear and follow through with action.
There's this song 'Kingdom of Noise' from singer/songwriters juddandmaggie (check out http://www.noisetrade.com/ for a free download of their entire album - it's really good) that talks about how we are constantly bombarded with messages and talk and noise in our culture. We hear, but we don't really hear. And people speak, but they don't really say anything.
And then I heard this sermon by Steve Chalk (my friend melissa blogged about it too, check out her blog http://www.mhayward.blogspot.com/ for a much better description) that talked about the slave trade going on right now. More people have been sold into the flesh trade currently than the total people captured during the transatlantic slave trade. Wow.
And he also said that right now in the Ivory Coast, people of all ages are being bought, captured, and forced into slavery. They work in the fields, harvesting cocoa beans. For my chocolate bars. For my favorite cookies. For my sweet treat at the end of a long day. 43% of the world's chocolate comes from the Ivory Coast. And while we don't know exactly how much of that comes from slave-based farms, you can bet that most of the chocoate on our grocery shelves has at least a bit of slave labor in them.
And then I went into Walmart (after just hearing that sermon) and I bought a chocolate bar and didn't even think twice about it. Man, you talk about hearing, but hearing not - that's me. I got home and realized what I did. So I taped the chocolate bar to my fridge and wrote the word 'flesh' on it. One website I looked at interviewed a young person in slavery in the Ivory Coast. He said, "When you eat chocolate, you eat my flesh." I want to see that bar and be painfully reminded of my responsibility to end modern-day slavery. I want it to remind me that my actions matter. Life is at stake. And I can do something.
Google chocolate and slavery to find out for yourself. And take action.
There's this song 'Kingdom of Noise' from singer/songwriters juddandmaggie (check out http://www.noisetrade.com/ for a free download of their entire album - it's really good) that talks about how we are constantly bombarded with messages and talk and noise in our culture. We hear, but we don't really hear. And people speak, but they don't really say anything.
And then I heard this sermon by Steve Chalk (my friend melissa blogged about it too, check out her blog http://www.mhayward.blogspot.com/ for a much better description) that talked about the slave trade going on right now. More people have been sold into the flesh trade currently than the total people captured during the transatlantic slave trade. Wow.
And he also said that right now in the Ivory Coast, people of all ages are being bought, captured, and forced into slavery. They work in the fields, harvesting cocoa beans. For my chocolate bars. For my favorite cookies. For my sweet treat at the end of a long day. 43% of the world's chocolate comes from the Ivory Coast. And while we don't know exactly how much of that comes from slave-based farms, you can bet that most of the chocoate on our grocery shelves has at least a bit of slave labor in them.
And then I went into Walmart (after just hearing that sermon) and I bought a chocolate bar and didn't even think twice about it. Man, you talk about hearing, but hearing not - that's me. I got home and realized what I did. So I taped the chocolate bar to my fridge and wrote the word 'flesh' on it. One website I looked at interviewed a young person in slavery in the Ivory Coast. He said, "When you eat chocolate, you eat my flesh." I want to see that bar and be painfully reminded of my responsibility to end modern-day slavery. I want it to remind me that my actions matter. Life is at stake. And I can do something.
Google chocolate and slavery to find out for yourself. And take action.
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