Some happy things :-)

Flowers from my friend Bridget who visited yesterday (I know her from high school) - also an Easter card and a just-because card from our neighbour Kathy.  Also, the purplish 'everlastings' to the left are from a bouquet Bridget gave me what must be at least a year ago!

Fairly traded Easter eggs

Did you know that most Easter eggs on sale in New Zealand this Easter are made with cocoa that could well have been grown by slaves?  Who would want to support that?

Below are some ways you can get your Easter treats whilst helping your neighbours to flourish, instead of supporting those who enslave them!

• FairTrade certified
• UTZ-certified
• Other fair trade certifications
• Cocoa-free
• Ones to watch out for
• Make your own!

What can we do about microplastic in the ocean?

You have probably heard about the problem of microplastic in the ocean: tiny pieces of plastic, too small to see, that sea creatures mistake for plankton.  They eat it, filling their stomachs with inert bulk, starve and die.  There is little evidence that this microplastic concentrates up the food chain (and the only time you're likely to personally eat it is whilst eating shellfish), but killing off a swathe of the bottom of the food chain still is surely unhealthy for the ecosystem as a whole.  It is also pretty disrespectful to the God who made the oceans.

What can we do about this?

Later I give my reasons in some detail, but, in brief, I have come to think that the most effective things we in the West can do are:

1. Drive less and always drive with well-inflated tyres and well-balanced wheels;
2. Avoid wearing petroleum-based synthetic textiles such as polyester and poly cotton blends (and wash those we do wear less often).

We can also work towards change in areas we don't affect directly:

1. Support charities that improve rubbish collection in the majority world and lobby aid donors such as NZAID to do the same;
2. Lobby councils and the Ministry of Transport to install road surfaces that are less eroding of tyres;
3. Lobby local councils to collect storm water and remove as much of the microplastic found there as possible.

Any one of these would have far more impact than bans on plastic microbeads, which are a negligible source of microplastics.

On the other, supporting bans on plastic bags may well be useful: I suspect that such light, easily-blown-away plastic items are likely to make up a significant part of the plastic not landfilled or recycled in NZ.  Participating in beach cleanups will also help prevent some of the items that didn't make it to a bin from entering the ocean.

Lectio divina

In January, I read a blog post by Lynne Baab on Lectio divina, an ancient practise of listening to God through reading scripture.  It was part of a series on listening to God in prayer (you can see the whole series at the end of this blog post).

At the time, I was aware that life had been more complicated than usual for a wee while.  I'd realised that, in response, I'd been praying and asking God for help quite a lot, but I'd been neglecting listening to God and seeking God simply for the sake of knowing him.  So this blog post came at an opportune time for me :-)

As Lynne describes it, lectio divina is a four-step meditation that can be used on any Bible passage.  Firstly you read it through slowly, looking for a word or phrase that stands out or 'shimmers'.  Then you re-read it, thinking about what the meaning of the whole passage is in the light of that word or phrase.  Thirdly you respond to God in regards to what you have seen, and lastly you wait quietly for anything he may have to say to you.

Some beautiful things

It's the time of year for Jerusalem artichokes and I'm greatly enjoying the flowers and the bumble bees they attract :-)

aren't they glorious?

And my moth orchid is still going strong (although with many fewer flowers after some wormy thing ate through lots of the stems...)

I'm also pleased with some cards I recently made:

The yellow and blue are glass paints on acetate.

The image was a reward given to my mum at Sunday school many years ago.  She came across a stash when they were moving house recently and I've kept a few and will be using the remainder on cards :-)

Fair Trade 'Nutella'

Over the last year or two I've been working on a recipe for home-made Nutella.  I don't want to buy regular Nutella as it's made with cocoa bought on the open-market, some of which will have been grown by slaves.  I want my global neighbours to flourish, so try to always buy fairly traded cocoa.  However, I still want to have a chocolate hazelnut spread in the house as one of our regular visitors is very attached to it, and hospitality is important, too!  Having failed to find any fairly traded chocolate hazelnut spread in New Zealand*, it was time to figure out how to make my own :-)

*if you're in Australia and have this problem, try this: it's yummy, widely available and not even that expensive!

Assisted Dying in New Zealand

Update: the submission deadline has been extended.  Submissions now close at midnight on Tuesday, March 6th.

A bill proposing to introduce assisted dying (i.e. voluntary euthanasia) is currently being considered by the Justice select committee of the New Zealand parliament.  Were this legislation to be passed into law, assisted dying would become available to anyone with a terminal condition who is expected to have less than six months to live, as well as to anyone with a grevous and irremediable medical condition.

I am against this and am in the process of writing a submission to the committee to say so.  Could I encourage you to do the same?  You can read information about the bill (along with some concerns about it) here or, if you're super-keen, read the full text of the bill here.  You can make your submission here.  Submissions close February 20th.  Parliament has prepared a guide on making submissions which you can read here.  You don't need to say anything more than whether you oppose or support the bill in question, although they prefer for you to give your reasons in moderate detail :-)