Lent and Fair Trade Coffee

So perhaps it’s a little bit of a cop-out that I’ve been miserably inconsistent with my daily centering prayer discipline I meant to do for Lent while I’ve been strikingly consistent in participating in the Fair Trade Coffee Fast that the Seminarians for Peace and Justice are pushing on the Princeton Seminary campus this Lent season. It’s true that both disciplines are difficult but the Fair Trade Coffee Fast is one which I expected to come easily. I think I drink a fair bit of fair trade and I don’t consider myself a crazy coffee drinker. But I’ve come to realize that it is pretty difficult to break one’s habits when it comes to that Sunday morning 16 oz wawa coffee before church or the occasional slip at Starbucks. And it makes me think about how much of our other food isn’t fair trade either and how this is such a small sacrifice but it’s really making me think hard about the choices that I make and the impact that they have.Try the fair trade coffee fast for a week for yourself during Lent and let me know how you find it. Apparently justice doesn’t come easily, and something about that actually makes sense.