You support the principles of Fair Trade every time you buy items through fair trade vendors. A list of local vendors is included below. Your purchase supports that vendor’s agreement with sellers, cooperatives of farmers and artisans, to guarantee working conditions taken for granted by workers in wealthier nations. Foremost is a living wage, offered with opportunities for workers to advance. Safe, humane work conditions must be provided for workers. Likewise, production of goods is done in the most environmentally sustaining way possible. Fair trade partnerships are open to public accountability and are designed to protect workers from exploitation.

Many parts of Chile benefit from a rising economy. Prosperity has never reached into the bleak barrios of the southern city of Chillan, where the Dianna Ortiz Center for Women (Casa Urselina) is located. Here poor women, mostly unwed mothers, wives of unemployed men and single parents come to learn a trade that will sustain their families. Since 1993, dedicated volunteers teach women to sew, bake, crochet, make dolls and paint cloth. The center also operates a program for pregnant teenagers, preparing them for the healthy birth of their baby while cultivating parenting skills and a trade necessary for support of mother and child. Crafted items made in Chile are for sale at Heartbeats in Rocky River.

These are locations that offer fair traded merchandise. It is noted that certain of these vendors also sell items made in disadvantaged areas other than the Global South. Poverty is as close as our own city.

There are also web sites where you can access each of the listed vendors. Sunday December 10th is IRTF Fair Trade Shopping Day, 12:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. in Rocky River, Heartbeats and Ten Thousand Villages join efforts to promote alternative, fair trade shopping, just in time to buy beautiful holiday gifts. A portion of sales will further the work of the InterReligious Task Force. Plan to stop in.

See also:  Shopping With A Conscience

“Martha” wasn’t even her real name. It was “Maria.” And very little else, fact or fiction, was known about her. Yet, Martha was a presence to us here at St. Malachi for many, many years.

Her small, forlorn figure could be seen here and there within a short radius of the church – in the streets and alleyways, under the bridges, at the rectory back door, or hovering in the parking area waiting for the end of a meeting so she could come into the hall to sleep on the floor.

Winter and summer in the same dark, increasingly ragged ankle-length clothes, her head buried in a cap or shawl. Clothing much too warm for summer, yet not quite warm enough for winter (One time, Fr. Paul Hritz prevailed on her to accept another coat; she returned it to him shortly, telling him to “give it to the poor.” He observed that she was “street-smart. She wasn’t going to get mugged for that coat.”).

Martha at all times kept all her worldly goods at her side, in plastic shopping bags. For a while there, a shabby small dog was ever at her side too.

Martha apparently came to the U.S. from Eastern Europe via the World War II refugee camp route. She was a “DP” – a displaced person. She was angry. She kept people at a distance. She refused assistance. Or accepted it begrudgingly, and only on her own terms.

So what did this get her? A place in a lot of hearts, that’s what. Martha’s funeral Liturgy, in early 1996 was crowded with St. Malachi community and parish members; she was especially important to Malachi staff, Monday Night Meal and Back Door Ministry people. At their own request, Stella Maris men were her pallbearers (To them, she was known as “Maria.” When coaxed, she drank their coffee. They watched out for her; she was “family” to them, too.).

This “bag lady,” or “street person,” if you will, was loved. Tears were shed at her funeral and stories were told. Turning away from her open casket in the back of the church, before the Liturgy, one viewer said, “Why, she looks like a baroness.” In a black lace dress, she did.

Affectionate chuckles greeted Fr. Tony Schuerger’s observation at the start of his homily: “This is one thing Martha could not stop us from doing.”

From several eulogists came recollections that belied the general Martha-image. For instance, she had been seen one time dancing around the hall’s stage area. Dancing and singing. And actually smiling (Martha? Smiling?).

Toward the end, when her poor abscessed feet could hardly carry her, she finally allowed someone to bandage them. But, consistent with her image, she would not accept needed assistance up to the rectory food window unless all her bags were brought along as well.

Through the years my own attempts at communicating with Martha were unsuccessful. Occasionally my greeting was met with a nod, a grunt and, just once, a wave of the hand. Fortunately, others were better at it than I. Once I was very moved at the sight of Mary Laubenthal holding Martha in her arms, gently rocking her and crooning: “Martha dear, please let me get you a warmer coat.” The look on Martha’s usually expressionless face was one of complete bliss (But she didn’t give in on the coat.”).

Like those of most “homeless,” Martha’s life was one of dreadful mental and physical disturbance. Yet, she was not totally homeless. She chose St. Malachi’s as her home. On her own terms, of course, always resisting offers of real housing arrangements.

Truth to tell, I think she was sent. A gift to us. A symbol. A constant reminder that no matter how bloody awful things get, they could be worse. A constant reminder to be grateful. No telling how many people driving to or from the Flats or downtown were affected by the heart-wrenching sight of that lonely, grungy little person. There’s an old saying: “There, but for the grace of God, go I.” Maybe there should be a similar one for Martha: “Here, thanks to the grace of God, came she.”

Well, she’s certainly not homeless now. Her clothes are no longer in shreds, and her streets these winters are a lot warmer than ours. Let’s thank God for that, and for the gift of Martha herself. As they used to say around this St. Malachi neighborhood: “God be good to her!”

Dan Alaimo has gently encouraged me to write for Communio for years and generally I have been pretty successful persuading myself that I simply do not have the time. I suspect that I’ve done this because I am – to paraphrase a line from the movie Waterdance – “afraid of what I might say.”

However, as I sit here writing this I find that something that happened just 36 hours ago compels me to do or say or write something, anything, because this something is just too huge for me to contain. Dan hinted at it in “Malachi File,” and I’m all too happy to spell it out for you here now in the pages of this vessel for Community sharing: At 1:32 a.m., on Labor Day, my very beautiful wife, Anita, delivered into the world my son.

I’m 44 years old and though I have been greatly blessed with the company of my two very smart, very funny and very pretty step–daughters, Madeline and Claire, my boy, my beautiful baby boy, is the first child of mine whose birthing I got to watch. That the experience has changed me is, of course, true. How it has changed me I can only guess at right now. How it will change me I can’t even begin to imagine.

A few years ago I was having a conversation about having kids with a couple I knew in the Lakewood Jaycees. They had decided not to have kids; this surprised me because I thought they would make excellent parents. In talking about their decision I expressed a long-held opinion that there are things about life, about selflessness and love in particular, that you can only learn having children.

I still believe this to be true. So, with Madeline, Claire and all their friends heading into another school year I find myself better able to empathize, because as it happens, I too am going back to school. I’m excited and I’m scared because…well, because I don’t know what I’m going to learn. And because this is not the kind of schooling anybody wants to fail.

I’ve learned a lot from my girls and there is a lot they have tried to teach me that I still don’t get. Now, there’s a new teacher in town and hopefully he won’t find me to be as stubborn a student as Madeline and Claire has. His name is Alejandro Gregorio Angel Gutierrez – Alex to his friends – and at 8 pounds 5 ounces and just over 21 inches I know already that he will be one powerful instructor.

God bless him.

I intended to follow up my article last month with a piece I was going to call “The Magic Of Meconium And Other Mysteries.” This changed shortly after 9 a.m. on September 11th when Anita – my wife – called me at work to tell me that One World Trade Center had been slammed into by a plane. Ten minutes later she called again to tell me that as she was watching the smoke billow from the first tower on TV, a second plane exploded into Two World Trade Center.

My coworkers and I spent the rest of the morning listening to the radio and checking CNN’s website for updates on the unbelievably horrific events of that sad, disturbing day. I found myself literally sick to my stomach thinking about what had happened and wondering if my cousin Carmen – the future Godmother to my beautiful baby boy, Alex – was alright because I knew she worked in Manhattan but I wasn’t sure where.

As troubled as I was about what had happened and its ramifications both personal and global, I did find that I had a place in my mind I could go to for refuge. All I had to do was rest my mind’s eye on the ever–changing countenance of my little boy and I was reminded that even during crisis, peace – joy even – is possible. You just had to remember to count your blessings. You had to remember to be grateful.

So, while I waited to hear from my brother, who was in touch with my aunt and uncle, about whether Carmen was safe, I kept thinking about all the grace in my life. And it occurred to me that while things had changed because of what happened, things were in some very fundamental ways still the same.

When you’re hugging your spouse or playing with your child; when you’re listening to a favorite piece of music; when you’re having breakfast with a good friend; when you’re holding the baby your wife just birthed, someone somewhere is suffering horribly. And this is true every second of every day. It was true before September 11th and it is true now.

Suffering, everybody’s veil of tears, is part of the deal, and when you are suffering it is good to be reminded that despite the pain, the fear and the anxiety, life is very much worth living. Resting my mind on my son’s face is my reminder.

After work on that terrible day I went home and waited with my wife, my kids and my brother to hear from Carmen. I was outside grilling some hot dogs when she called. She had walked to her apartment in Brooklyn from her office six blocks uptown from the WTC. You could hear the crushing strain of what she had experienced in her voice but she was home. Another blessing to be sure.

After I got off the phone with her I went inside to look at my son.

Good morning. Many of you know me but for those of you who don’t, my name is Luis Gutierrez, and I have been a member of the Community of St. Malachi for about 8 1/2 years. Over the last 7 months I have found myself challenged by a series of health problems. Starting in June of ‘04 I was diagnosed with an aggressive prostate cancer, my kidneys failed, I had my prostate removed, I did 8 weeks of radiation, a tumor developed behind my left eye, I had a biopsy of that tumor, I developed steroid-induced diabetes, I did another 4 weeks of radiation and now I have a cold. I understand that all this sounds pretty bad, but when I think about it the first thing that pops into my head are the words of an ancient Chinese Zen master who said, “There is nothing for us to do at this moment but to have a good laugh.”

With that in mind and with my litany of ills as context, let me quickly do something I’ve always wanted to do: [Note: To be read as if there were an echo.] “My brothers and sisters, for the past several months you have been reading about the bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth.”

I reference Lou Gehrig’s famous farewell speech not to be flip about my illness and certainly not because I’m going anywhere soon, but because every time I think about what my family and I have been through these past seven months I always end up feeling lucky, I end up feeling blessed.

As I move through this season of reflection and discernment I’m not asking myself, “Why me, Lord?” I’m asking myself what does having this cancer call me to do?

I found one answer in today’s second reading which begins, “Beloved: Bear your share of hardship for the gospel with the strength that comes from God.” For me this is a call to bear witness and it’s what I’ve witnessed that lies at the heart of why I feel so blessed. Directly because of my cancer I have been blessed to be a witness to so much caring and kindness, to so much generosity, to so much love that when I stop and think about it - and I often do - I find myself grateful for God’s goodness. Family, friends, this community and its pastors, my neighbors on Summit Ave., the men and women of Lakewood’s Family Room, people I know well and people I don’t know at all, really, have been so giving...In a world of suffering mine is small ‘s’ because of the support I’ve received and I can’t help but feel that it’s a blessing to be able to tell people about it, to bear witness to the Christ I’ve experienced in the people around me.

And so I’d like to thank you – for your prayers, for your expressions of concern, for your smiles, for your hugs, for the food you’ve brought to my house, for the time you’ve spent with my babies so that I can rest, but most of all for the opportunity you’ve given me to witness that in the midst of our suffering God’s goodness is evident, that Christ is alive in the people around us.

One last thing...I’d be remiss if I closed without also bearing witness to the strength of my wife. Anita, while you may not be the Alpha and the Omega, my days begin and end with you and the good attitude I get so much credit for is impossible without you. Thank you. And thank all of you.