Tag Archives: Belief

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Disturb us, O Lord,
When we are too pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, O Lord,
When with the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst for the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, O Lord,
To dare more boldly,
To venture on wilder seas,
Where storms will show Your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.

We ask you to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push into the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.

This we ask in the name of our Captain,
Who is Jesus Christ.

Prayer of Francis Drake, 1577

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So I’m standing in my most favourite stationary store of them all (Paperchase of course), a notebook in each hand trying to decide between the two products.
In my right hand I have the Hippy Central notebook – made from recycled paper and using vegetable based inks only (although maybe a real hippy would make one out of dead leaves they found in the street instead of buying one).
In my left hand I have the notebook version of a banker – straight lines, white paper and the ink is probably made out of baby panda spleen. Not a hint of anything recycled or environmentally friendly in sight.
The hippy notebook has 100 less pages than the banker notebook. The hippy notebook has yellower (is that even a word?) pages than then banker notebook. The hippy notebook doesn’t have a spiral spine or perforated pages. But the hippy notebook costs £2.50 more than the banker notebook.
Decisions decisions.
Do I stick to my principles of trying to be environmentally friendly but pay more for a slightly lesser product? Or do I sell out and get the product that is more functional and cheaper but more damaging to the environment?
Am I willing to act on what I claim to believe even when there is a cost?
This is a question I face more than I would like.
Last week I was walking through H&M in the Eastfield Temple (the Westfield in East London – get to know!) acutely aware that most of their clothes sport labels proclaiming ‘Made in Bangladesh’ or ‘Made in Vietnam.’
Now I don’t know for sure that the workers who had to sew these labels in were being exploited but my guess is that it’s more likely than not. So what do I do? Do I buy the cheaper clothes that make a profit from someone else’s misery? Or do I save up and only get fair-trade stuff from somewhere like People Tree?
Am I willing to act on what I claim to believe even when there is a cost?
Are you willing to act on what you believe even when there is a cost?
I am pleased to say that I put the banker notebook back on the shelf and proudly took my Little Hippy Notebook to the till.
But I did get the clothes from H&M (birthday present for my brother. He will almost certainly take them back though. It’s the thought that counts right?).