Tomatoes

On your sandwich, on your salad, in your sauce...tomatoes are pretty simple right?

Recently I went with some fellow YAVs to another talk at Vandy. This time it was the Coalition of Immakolee Workers (or CIW), a group that fights for better working conditions and wages for tomato pickers in Florida, in addition to combatting modern-day slavery. (You know how this works: click the link for more info.)

Now, the whole time, I was thinking about the simplicity of tomatoes. Like...how many people think about the tomatoes on their sandwich at a restaurant? It's not like tomatoes themselves are a major food group. Tasty as they are, tomatoes just aren't a food that many people put all that much thought into. But here are these thousands of people who (try to) earn their livelihood by picking tomatoes, often in awful conditions and for little to no pay. So, a big part of what the CIW does is fight to get different businesses to raise the price per pound of tomatoes by one cent. That's it, just $0.01. But as it turns out, that makes a huge difference. And so far the CIW has gotten agreements from Taco Bell, McDonalds, Burger King, and Subway. In addition to that one cent increase, these agreements also feature a code of conduct that guarantees safe working conditions and a zero-tolerance policy on modern-day slavery. As it turns out, now the CIW is focusing on getting supermarkets to agree to the same terms. So far only Whole Foods has agreed.

I am far from an expert on the CIW or food justice in general, but I thought it was interesting enough to share. And you know, as much as I can talk/type about it, it's an entirely different ball game to live it out. For example: halfway through writing this I went grocery shopping Kroger, including tomatoes. I don't know where they came from, but I bought 'em anyway. Why? Because Kroger has good prices. We YAVs just read a chapter on "household economics" for our Friday morning discussion, from Dorothy Bass's Practicing Our Faith. Part of it mentioned living simply, which is in theory (and hopefully practice) a big part of YAV life. It talked about how living simply does not have to mean giving up every single thing you own (though it does usually mean living with less), but instead it can mean being very intentional about the things that you do own. Ok, so, great. Buy fair trade goods and food, etc. and that "counts" as simple living. Well, more often than not, things certified fair trade (or clothing guaranteed to be made in good working conditions, etc) are more expensive. So, what to do if you're on a tight budget? I'm not sure. Granted, we Nashville YAVs could certainly be living far simpler existences, but we do have to put some thought into where we spend our stipends. Not to mention it's just a tricky thing for me to even remember to think about where that tomato came from.

I suppose regardless of whether or not my newfound tomato knowledge makes it into practice, it's a step in the right direction to be aware?

Love,
Allison.

Getting my learn on.

I went to another lecture at Vandy this past Sunday night (confusingly enough, they too have a Furman Hall), this time on what the Bible says about homosexuality. The evening consisted of a showing of the film Fish Out of Water and was followed by comments from and questions from Vanderbilt professor Dr. Amy-Jill Levine (who also happens to be a famous New Testament scholar whose work I read in several classes at Furman).

If you want to know more about the documentary, check out the link above, or watch the trailer on YouTube. It discusses the seven Bible verses most commonly used against homosexuality, and and has clips of interviews with people on both sides of the debate. This is obviously a controversial subject, and it's undoubtedly a biased film. These things aside, I personally enjoyed seeing it (perhaps because I agree with the side toward which it leaned) and I've been thinking about it on and off since Sunday.

I know this is a touchy subject with a whole lot of people, but one of the comments that Dr. Levine said stuck out to me: "The Bible should help us ask the right questions. It's not an answer book." Now, I do think that there are some answers to be found in the Bible. But I also think there's something to be said for challenging things and asking questions. As Dr. Levine also commented (forgive my paraphrasing): the people on both sides of this argument are just trying to live out their lives the way that they believe God wants them to.

I think I enjoyed seeing this film partly because I've never really known specifics about the arguments on either side of this debate. And whichever of those sides you fall on, I think it's worth seeing.

Love,
Allison

Theology, country music, and sports.

The father of liberation theology, an awards show, college basketball and the NHL...all in less than a week! Sorry it's been a while since my last update, friends. Life in Nashville has been pretty exciting lately, so here it goes...my latest Music City adventures, and in all likelihood some rambling to go along with it.

This past Monday I cashed in on the living-near-a-div-school aspect of my life and went with three of the other YAVs to see Gustavo Gutierrez speak at Vanderbilt. For those of you who don't know about Gustavo Gutierrez, he's a priest/theologian from Peru who's widely seen as the founder of the liberation theology movement. So I was pretty excited about it. I know Wikipedia is far from a scholarly source, but here's their page on liberation theology if you're curious and want to know more. One interesting thing that stuck out to me over the course of the talk doesn't even directly deal with the specific theology of liberation. It's more of a context thing: until this movement, really, theology was for the most part coming from the developed, Western world. Europe and North America, basically. Liberation theology brought with it studies of religious practice from the perspective of the poor and marginalized. Now, to be perfectly honest, this is not a population that I feel I can easily relate to. I do, however, think it's so important for bubble-dwellers like myself to try and see things through a different lens. One of the things Gutierrez mentioned is that it is not sufficient to just help the poor...that we must be against poverty itself. This sort of thing, if perhaps in different words, has crossed my mind more than once over the course of my life...volunteering at Luke 14:12 and in the other relatively few experiences I've had working with the homeless. Yeah sure, it's great to go serve a meal (seriously, it is), but at the end of the day I know I'll go back to my house, pick something out of the fridge for dinner, and go to sleep in a bed. (Toolshed or not, it's still here and it's still far more than a lot of people have.) Now, that's not to say that I necessarily know who to or would be able to start fighting poverty itself, but it's something to think about. Despite the severity and expansiveness of injustice and poverty in the world, the fact that those in its grip can still be so strong in their faith and in their convictions of hope for the future is truly and incredibly inspiring to me. I'm obviously not the most educated in the field of liberation theology and injustice in the world, but listening Gutierrez on Monday sure got me thinking.

Well, fast forward to Wednesday and totally switch gears: I got to go to the CMA awards! Definitely a different world than that of liberation theology, and not one much concerned with the "simple living" we YAVs in theory subscribe to (but our tickets were free, I promise). Through Mary Kate's friend's friend, we ended up with two tickets! We laughed as we were deciding what to wear though...I wasn't exactly planning on going to an awards show when I packed for my year as a volunteer! I'm definitely far from a die-hard country fan, but it was still super exciting to be there. I was all prepared to take my camera and document this adventure, but alas the tickets specified that photography wasn't allowed. Little did I know that everyone else would take their cameras anyway...oh well. At least I've got a ticket stub to prove I was there! Part of me couldn't help but feel guilty as we walk.ed towards the arena, passing right by homeless folks on Broadway. Granted, we weren't part of the ball-gowns-and-tux crowd, but there's still so much we have. But guilt or not, it was still a pretty exciting night

With Friday came more (free) tickets, this time to a Vandy basketball game! Our tickets came from the Presbyterian College side though (thanks again Mary Kate...), so we put on our blue and garnet and cheered for the Hose. Sort of. Those of you who know me well know that sports are not exacltly my life's greatest passion. But Beth and Sally got to see their alma mater play, and despite the fact that it didn't end so well for PC, it was still some lovely community bonding time. A couple pictures, stolen from Beth...

Nashville YAVs (minus Michael)

The Shed

As it turns out, there's this great website run by a group called Hands on Nashville (there are "Hands on..." groups in different cities, too) that has a giant project calendar of volunteer opportunities in the area. In the process of looking for things to do with PSF, I happened across a can drive for Second Harvest food bank that was going on a Nashville Predators (hockey) game. Turns out that if you signed up to volunteer, you got a free ticket after the game started! So off we went, four of us YAVs, to experience another part of Nashville. And I think I may have found a new favorite sport to watch. I was mostly joking when I said in the first period that I hoped it would go to a shoot out (and that we'd win of course), but as it turns out that's exactly what happened! And, in what I can only assume is the typical Nashville fashion, there was a live band playing music between periods. Admittedly, before this game the extent of my hockey knowledge came from the Mighty Ducks movies and Miracle, but hey...gotta start somewhere right? I actually took my camera and remembered to take pictures, so here's the photographic evidence of our Preds adventure...

Collecting cans/money before the game.

Bring it on Chicago...bring it on.

With Sally, Mary Kate, and Vic

Mary Kate and Sally are fierce fans...

Shootouts are exciting!

Preds win!!!

And despite the fact that little to none of this post has involved my talking about work, I promise I really am still working for PSF! We're going ice skating next week...maybe my new hockey experience will help me make less of a fool of myself in public? Probably not, but I'm looking forward to it nonetheless. :)

Love,

Allison.