justice

I've been reading and reflecting a lot lately on what it means to do justice. Several months ago, Ken and I made the switch to fair trade coffee and tea. Now, on occasion these days that means drinking a little less of it (at $10.00 a pound for coffee, the budget can only sustain so much). I just couldn't stand the thought that my consumption was doing damage to brothers and sisters around the world. Then there was the bottled water thing that I posted about before. While at that same meeting a sister from Lithuania gave me a card that has this quote on it from Mother Theresa "It is a very great poverty to decide that a child must die that you might live as you wish." WHOA!!!
That's just been the tip of the iceberg though, this calls into question everything ... where does one begin when all I've ever known is a lifestyle of capitalist consumption? how do I manage to question every purchase, every action in light of my love for my global brothers and sisters? what impact will I really have? and there I stopped. I can continue to blindly and ignorantly consume, but I'm no longer able to deny that my actions have effects on others. Last night Ken and I watched "The Age of Stupid" and I was convicted about my consumption again. So, today I went to Chapters. I looked at several books, including one called the Justice Project, and I eventually placed them all back on their shelves. It seems so ironic that I would think that the way out of consumerism is to buy another book. Perhaps this was a first step, maybe it wasn't, but "God I need your wisdom in how to proceed". Now, to shut off the computer for the night to save a little energy.