forced to be oppressors ourselves as we do not know that the chocolate we eat is 'traffik free'.

We want all chocolate companies to be able to stamp onto their chocolate wrappers a symbol that tells us the cocoa beans have not been harvested by trafficked labour. We can then choose to eat chocolate that we know is TRAFFIK FREE.

Diabate and Traoré had left their village in Mali to go to Ivory Coast looking for enough money to afford a bicycle, but they were sold to a man who had paid 50,000 West African Francs (about £50) for the two boys and he wanted the money back—in labour. The boys from Sirkasso met about twenty others in the same predicament and learned that no one was ever paid. They slept in a rectangle-shaped mud hut that initially had windows but when some boys found they could escape during the night, the windows were sealed shut. Diabate and Traoré remember eating mostly bananas, though they would gobble up the cocoa beans, as others did, whenever they got the chance. Many months passed, and the boys forgot what the purpose had once been for this adventure. Life became a struggle to exist, then hardened to despair.
They gave up thinking of escape. They were under constant threat of beatings if they were caught trying to flee—and they had seen several boys treated savagely—they were actually spooked by a belief that they were under a spell.

STOP THE TRAFFIK Chocolate Campaign is about ACTION and CHANGE.

Customers need to know who picked the cocoa beans that make chocolate.

Retailers need to know that their customers will change what they buy to force the chocolate industry to change their practices.

The chocolate manufacturers need to realise that this is the time to: 

                                      SIGN THE CHOCOLATE PLEDGE
                                      KEEP THEIR ORIGINAL PROMISES And GIVE US TRAFFIK FREE CHOCOLATE NOW

            WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR?

For more information on how YOU can help Stop the Traffic - click here.  

Read more about Diabate and Traore in Carol Off's book "Bitter Chocolate".

 

The Salvation Army of 2008, however, is a very different organization than that of the late 1800s. It is an international organization with thousands of officers, employees, laypeople, volunteers and donors and all the challenges that are endemic to a large organization.

We have a mission and vision that are steeped in faith and experience. In our complex organization, that vision has to be translated into language that is understood by everyone, no matter what their particular role or position. That language is found in values. “Visionary organizations are not only aware of their values,” says Richard Barrett in Liberating the Corporate Soul, “they consciously use them to guide decision making and to build cohesive culture.” Excellence can be achieved when everyone involved understands how an organization’s values relate to their particular role. The great news is that it’s not impossible, it’s actually extremely do-able.

We’ve spent a lot of time at the Ethics Centre delving into the mysteries of organizational culture, and we’re convinced that values integration is a key component to healthy organizations. Let’s face it, The Salvation Army’s got a mission and a heritage that’s hard to beat. Translating that mission and heritage into core values that are then translated into behaviors will assure a common language that yields a solid base for another century of witness. “We have to follow the example of Jesus,” says one of the original Board members of the Ethics Centre. “It has to do with calling, vocation. The integration of values has to be head to heart, and heart to hand.”

a band called Woodpigeon is sure that you can’t go home again, “no one wants you once you’ve gone,” Bon Jovi questions this conventional wisdom with “Who says you can’t go home?” Frank Sinatra, among countless others, promises that indeed he will “be home for Christmas,” even if it’s only in his dreams. Jon Foreman, lead singer of Switchfoot, is also “headed home”, but he’s not sure if “home is a place you can still get to by train.” John Mayer is on a train too, but seems to be headed in the other direction when he begs “stop this train, I want to get off and go home again.” Michael Bublé is “too far from where you are” to get there by train, he’ll have to fly to “be home tonight.” 

Along with Gordon Lightfoot who thinks “it’s so nice to talk about the hometown a million miles away” many write songs of longing for particular places that feel like home: James Taylor is missing Carolina. Billy Joel has got New York on his mind. British jazz singer Jamie Cullum is romanticizing his London town. And Lynrd Skynrd sure has sweet things to say about Alabama.

A band called Keane laments that “an empty house is not a home.” The Barenaked Ladies recall all the moments “when I knew I was home.” Chantel Kreviazuk thinks that falling in love “feels like home to me.” The Beatles seem to be always drawn back home down the “long and winding road that leads to your door.” And depending upon who is singing it, (I prefer Eva Cassidy) ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ sure seems like a pleading prayer to be one day at home.

This month, the Ethics Centre invites you to consider homelessness, both in the conventional sense: men, women, teenagers and children who are inadequately housed because of their socio-economic circumstances, but also in a broader, more spiritual sense: the rootlessness, isolation and loneliness that pervades our post-modern culture. It seems to us that in some way everyone is longing to be at home. Searching the Bible through the lens afforded by the reality of homelessness, we find the story of God as Homemaker, who once created a home for us to live in, was deeply grieved to evict sinful humanity from the Garden, but desires that the church to be homemakers with him, calling people home and helping everyone to sense they belong here.

This year, many did not spend Christmas at home because they lost their houses to the sub-prime mortgage scheme. Many are still waiting for their homes to be rebuilt after the devastating effects of hurricanes and floods in low-lying areas. Some may have houses, walls and rooms and furniture, but no love to fill it or make it a home. Many spent Christmas in shelters, hostels or in make-shift houses that have been clapped together with whatever is readily available. While these people may be classified as “homeless” it is possible that they will feel more at home than many who spent Christmas in clean and sturdy white-washed apartments that don’t bear the marks of any particular place or inhabitant.  

Perhaps love is the solution to all these kinds of homelessness. And if so, shouldn’t the church, embodying the love of Jesus Christ, be working to put an end to it?

Click here for some worship aids on the topic of homelessness.
 

to Sylvia (which is what she called herself) was that I was also a bit wary, sensing a scam coming on.  If I could stay standing, I had a chance to retain some independence, some control.  They say posture helps establish a power in a relationship.  (Sylvia knew that, I think, without reading any psychology textbooks.  And she also knew that just because you’re standing it doesn’t mean you’ve actually got the upper hand.  It’s more subtle than that.)
The story was classic.  Sylvia was in the city, pretty much broke and needed bus fare to get back to Dauphin.  She needed twenty dollars. 
Had she phoned friends?, I asked. “I’m from out of town.  I don’t have friends here.”  How about social services or The Salvation Army?  “I’ve been trying that all day.”  Well, I think I know a number I could call. “They don’t do that kind of thing any more.” 
“Maybe I’ve got five I could spare. Let me see.”
“Five won’t do me any good.  I need twenty.”
I could see the yarn unfolding…very skillfully...very coherently…all the suspicions answered before they were even asked.  It’s like I was listening to Sylvia’s every word, and at the same time hovering in spirit over the whole scene watching myself being reeled in.
Looking back, I realize it helped her that she was twenty-something and pretty and I was middle-aged and male.  It could be true, after all, I told myself.  And how would I want my daughter to be treated if she were in a pinch?
Sylvia even covered off the fact that she was aboriginal and I was white.  “A cabbie took my bank card last night.  Didn’t trust that I’d pay.  So he took it and wouldn’t give it back.” 
“Did you call the cops?”
“Yeah… and I don’t mean to say they’re racist or anything, but they took his side.”  (Implication—turn me down and I’ll charge you with prejudice.)
You know where this is going.  In the end, Sylvia got her twenty dollars.  And I stood there feeling dumb and chivalrous and trapped, all at the same time.  What, I asked myself, could I have done differently?  As soon as I told my kids the story they had great answers, but at the time, I think I was overwhelmed by the unexpectedness of it—and the vivid consciousness that I was standing at a Christmas kettle in full Salvation Army uniform, in a busy mall, asking passersby to be generous.  How could I be a hard nose?  How could I tell her that God cared and then let the security camera record me sending her away empty-handed?
I keep telling myself I’d rather be gulled by a stranger with a plausible tale than to actually be that stranger having always to live a lie.  I try to tell myself that maybe Sylvia did experience a bit of God’s grace through me.  I tell myself that Sylvia’s so skilled at her brand of panhandling that she really earned what I gave her.  And it all salves my ego. 
But mostly I just feel dumb.  And hope that next time I’ll be ready…that I’ll be as wise as a serpent and not only as innocent as a dove.  Because otherwise, I’m afraid the Sylvias I meet are eventually going to make me the suspicious, cynical, tight-fisted geezer I don’t want to become.

Some would say art must be representational to be considered ‘art’.  It is more likely

that art is simply a creation which awakens emotions, evokes feelings, stirs memory.   God was the first artist and we are created in that image.  There is art inside of all of us - we just need to let the art out! 

Jerry has spent the last twenty years 'letting the art out'. In cramped studio space in San Francisco and Reno he has generated a body of art that is startling in its breadth and creativity. Few people are neutral in their response to Jerry’s creative work. We invite you to form your own opinion and let his art invade your senses. 

To view more examples of Jerry's art visit : www.Firelobe.com
 

I understand the concepts, and I understand the research; it’s the solutions that perplex me.

“Moral distress” is a term that was coined a generation ago by a professor of nursing to describe the experience of feeling incapable of doing what one believes one ought to do

because of some barrier, such as the opposition of someone more powerful in the situation, or the unresponsiveness of the organization within which one works. 

It’s not a phenomenon unique to nurses, of course.  If you’re a person with a conscience, you’ve probably experienced it yourself.  Not surprisingly, it’s experienced acutely in the workplace by professionals since to be a professional is to stand for a certain set of values and see oneself as bound by ethical responsibilities.  Again not surprisingly, it’s reportedly experienced acutely by people lower in the pecking order in complex organizations—by medical residents in their internships and staff nurses, less than by doctors. 

But the experience is not confined to the young and front-line staff only.  Research shows that 15-25% of nurses in critical care areas (places like neonatal intensive care units) have left their positions or the profession because of moral distress.  I wouldn’t be surprised to find similar numbers in the ministry or in social work (though that would itself be an interesting research question).

So what’s the ethical manager to do about it?  (That’s the primary question that next week’s workshop wants to hear about.) 

My wife was present the first time I did the talk.  Afterwards she was easy on my sensitive ego, but said that I needed to be clearer in my bottom line, which is that the ethical manager needs to be as resourceful as the issue is complex.

One of the “strategies” I mention might be called the Stoic response.  In brief, it’s to counsel those in moral distress that “ought implies can” and so if they really could not have done anything different in the circumstances then they should not burden themselves with guilt.  In Christian circles, this is known as part of the “Serenity Prayer”: “Lord, give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.”  In some Wesleyan circles, it’s known as being holy even though things go wrong—on the grounds that holiness has to do with the agent’s intentions and motivations, not with results.

But I have to admit that I find this a less-than-wholly satisfying answer.  I find something admirable in people who carry a feeling of personal guilt and personal compromise when they have not been able to do their best, even when the impediments have been outside their control. In some ways I don’t want them to feel that way, and I am troubled when these sensitive souls exit their professions, but on the other hand I think there’s something ethically shallow about people who blithely say “Well, I did what I could.    

What do you think?