Reflections from my living room

The word 'reflections' can suggest not just thinking, but thinking deeply about things. Thinking, and thinking deeply, can be two very different activities, the one involving, say, solving a crossword puzzle, the other involving thinking about the universe, which, as someone once pointed out, is very big indeed! Some people deliberately try to avoid thinking too much, for example by not watching or listening to the News.

But just sitting in our own living room minding our own business can itself raise ethical questions. Did the materials inside your mobile phone or flatscreen television come from reputable suppliers, or was it dug out by viciously exploited workers in darkest Africa? Has your buying fairtrade coffee made the problem of exploited coffee farmers go away? What about the leather in your sofa, cheap cashmere sweaters, cotton goods or laptops produced by child labour, or children's toys packaged courtesy of virgin wood from Sumatra? If we shie away from thinking about issues like these, we've probably given up also on the bigger issues – like too many people in the world, too few resources (even simple ones, like water), and climate change.

Pessimism, or even cynicism, has become a way of thinking, perhaps even a way of life. Any teacher will tell you that conveying an optimistic view of life to children and young people often goes against the grain of what society as a whole thinks. It is all too easy to believe that family life is disintegrating, communities are becoming uncaring, bullying is rife in the workplace, and those of whom we expect high standards, such as bankers, politicians, and journalists, are all in it just for the money.

I recently read a university magazine article by a leading industrialist predicting that the present world (probably receiving its 7 billionth inhabitant this year) will collapse by the end of the century. However, he assured his readers that the few who survived (apparently his dinner-party guests) would be able to live a wonderfully fullfilling life, with a life-span extended hundreds of years by ever-improving science and technology! (I'm not making this up – he even had a 'Sir' in front of his name.) The gentleman (or should that be 'knight' if he's a 'sir') seemed to have forgotten the founding Christian principles of his own university and the society it serves.

As Christians we are realistic about whose world this is (Psalm 24 v.1) and our own place in it (John 3 v.16). Our salvation covers the past, the present, and the future. We also believe in a God who loves all of us (Luke 12 v.6 above). This gives us a profound optimism that as long as we stay in partnership with the God who made us we can look forward to a better world for everyone. 

[My thanks to 'The Guardian' for the specific examples of unethical household objects]