Moments of Spiritual Clarity 5-5-13

Anderson, South Carolina

Moments of clarity come in many forms. Some of them are singularly unpleasant as when an oncologist tells us we have a form of cancer refractory to any known treatment; we realize perhaps too late so much of our time, energy, and finance went to things not mattering in the least. Other times they come a bit more easily as when we find the power shut off because we forgot to pay the electric bill. Caught up in the mindless frantic chaos of consumer living, we failed to put first things first. Occasionally, they arrive as beautiful spontaneous acts of generosity we have no premonition of. When we are open to life messages we become students again: last night I unexpectedly found myself sitting front and center in a grand concert hall experiencing an epic performance, wondering about internal structures of symphonies, repeating rondos, and mottos.

Today I had a lesson, a moment of clarity, in my closet on a Sunday morning. My closet? Usually we think of Sunday morning epiphanies as happening in more elaborated environments than our closets. Having taking care of my usual Sunday morning activities, it seemed appropriate to go home and create a bit of good orderly direction in my life. Some things get done more regularly; flushing the toilet, washing dishes, flossing. Less frequently, I can be found buying groceries, vacuuming the house, cutting the grass. Far too infrequently I can be found cleaning the garage and backing up computer files. Mending laundry, never; just give my tired and poor to the Goodwill and start anew.

Ten days ago the world was giving a very graphic lesson in the high cost of living high. In one of the worst industrial accidents of all time, many hundreds of young Bangladeshi women on the cusp of life died while making my shirts, perhaps yours. The Klieg lights of disaster and broad-band Internet brought well-hidden secrets into our consciousness. A large portion of the clothing we wear in the West is made in virtual slave camps in Asia, the Caribbean basin, and parts of Latin America. I learned the factory gate price of an article of clothing is marked up one thousand percent. I learned millions of women work for $20-38 a month for six days a week of hard toil in unsafe harsh workplaces. I learned whole families live in single windowless cells where two entire salaries of family members go to the slumlord’s rent. I learned the owner of the collapsed Rana plaza has $200 million a year in turnover from his garment factories. I learned eighty percent of Bangladesh’s $20 billion in export incomes derives from thousands of these garment factories.

I learned I am responsible for this.

As one who looks at the world mathematically, it was sobering to realize millions of women toil an entire month under draconian conditions for less compensation than the retail price of an ordinary shirt sold in a European or North American department store. Hundreds ‘gave’ their lives so those of us living in the West can buy fine clothing for the price of a pizza and a pitcher of beer. Uncounted millions of Asians will live out abject lives of the merest subsistence and survival while my closets are overflowing. If I’m willing to spend $40-$70 for a shirt in the mall, my funds will pay the mall operator, department store management and stock holders, trucking companies, overseas shipping container magnates, customs house brokers, power bosses owning the garment factories, fabric manufacturers, and political powers in corrupt governments. Last in line are the cotton farmers and garment workers who get the few crumbs left over. Last in line are the only ones who contribute true value to my life; those actually fabricating well-made clothing. Certainly, the $170 million paid to install an incompetent management team in one of America’s best known department store chains did not improve my quality of life, and, for certain, did nothing for the dear women of Bangladesh.

The Klieg lights have me looking more closely at my own behavior. As it is, I have long known the realities of supply and demand economics and have been careful to avoid creating demand for goods produced in harsh work environments; also wanting to contribute to environmental sustainability. For decades it has been my practice to buy as much as possible second hand or recycled, including all my clothing, something many American consumers find abhorrent.

When my clothing loses buttons, tears, or gets stained, it has been my inclination to simply put it back into the feedstock input of the thrift store infrastructure, figuring it has been used at least a couple of times, and can now be made into rags or insulation.

When a moment of clarity reveals the extraordinarily high cost of big living here in the West, at the expense of exploited millions, my clothes have suddenly taken on nearly the status of icons. I find myself speculating about the young women who made the shirt and pants I’m wearing today. I wonder if they will leave their oppressive factories and go back to their claustrophobic windowless cells for ten hours, before they do it all over again tomorrow; for the rest of their lives. I conjecture if these women have any idea how well we live over here. I’m happy they don’t know I will wear their clothes to a palace on the lake for fine dining today.

Taking out a pair of pants this morning and putting them on, the zipper button was missing. I got out another pair. I knew I must do something different; putting those thrown down pants back into the thrift store feedstock stream was no longer an option. Getting out needle and thread and finding a stray button, I made the tiny repair. I ironed the pants, putting them back on a hanger in the closet. Knowing someone worked a hellish month for less than those pants cost the original purchaser, made it imperative I be willing to give ten minutes to keeping them from becoming rags or insulation. Curiously, I felt like I had offered prayers when finished.

While making repairs to a number of garments, I thought about my role in labor exploitation, consumerism, and just how much I was contributing to economic disparities in our ever-shrinking over-crowded world. I wasn’t thinking about the internal structures of symphonies, rondos, or mottos. I was thinking about how we are all in this together.

I’m guilty for having far more than my share. I’m thankful I get mercy rather than justice. How do I make amends? Perhaps I need to go back into my closet for the answer.

“But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.”

Blessings,

Craig C. Johnson