This logo is now a common sight. Wandering around Leicester city centre yesterday it was to be found in coffee shops (which I don't visit in Lent!) and M&S as well in the newly refurbished Just fairtrade shop; almost every supermarket was plugging fairtrade fortnight with a wide range of products. What a long way things have come in the last few years as fairtrade has moved from the margins to being a major player in the UK marketplace.
In the evening I went with a couple of church folk to a Paul Field concert to mark the end of Fairtrade Fortnight (he is the writer of 'Lord make me a mountain', 'With all my heart I thank you Lord' and 'One of us, flesh and blood'). The audience was not large - perhaps fifty or so, sat cafe style in the Leicester Y theatre for an evening of thoughtful and thought-provoking music, first from support group Imaginary Friend (who had an interesting array of skeleton electronic stringed instruments!) and then Paul - who I now realise I first heard about 25 years ago when he was part of Network 3, the support act at a Cliff Richard concert, a trip arranged by my, then, RE teacher!
I found in some of what Paul said, and sang, echoes of much I hear in singer-songwriters of his age group, and which resonate with my own thoughts and feelings. He is, he says, no longer concerned to please people, it matters not if the audience is 10 or 10,000, he has things to say about which he feels passionate (and that 'passion' has replaced 'energy' as he's got older) and he's going to say them, right or wrong, popular or not.
And he does! One of his songs, exploring the relationship between 'church' (worhsip) and the 'real world' actually included a line that went something like 'do they give a sh*t?' (and, for the nice polite folk among us, the vowel was not 'a', 'e', 'o' or 'u'). How far Christian music has moved in 25 years! And how much more real we have started to become. OK, so I wouldn't choose to use that expression myself (and would not dare play that song to my congregation!) but they are sentiments I gladly echo.
It would be good for Fairtrade Fortnight to become redundant. It would also be good if we could all do just a little bit to start giving a thought (much tamer word!) to relating our faith to our lives and our world. Long live James 2: 26!