Hunger Rumblings
ELCA World Hunger staff and associates write about root causes of hunger, current events, and anything else they find pertinent.
Deep engagement versus enough engagement?
I’ve been thinking a lot about David’s last post (here), and have a few thoughts to share.
I don’t think it is realistic to expect people to engage deeply with every issue, even those that are important to them. Many people I know have their own issue(s) that they are already engaged deeply with — they may care about world hunger, but they simply not have the time or energy to invest in deepening their engagement and understanding of it. Ending world hunger is complicated and not as simple as increasing crop yields, or sending people food. Working to end world hunger is also pretty overwhelming, and frankly many people are already overwhelmed with their day-to-day lives.
If you’re not deeply engaged, fully informed, and thinking systematically about hunger, and if you jump into feel-good activities that may not be sustainable, there is potential for unintended consequences. David’s previous post on this topic here really resonated with me. Most people in the pews on Sunday are not experts on the complexity of world hunger issues — they are experts in their own chosen fields and their own personal causes. You don’t have to be an expert to make a difference.
To me, it is critically important that every ELCA member understand that they are part of a larger church that does have a deeply engaged, comprehensive and sustainable program that uses multiple strategies – relief, development, education, and advocacy – to address the root causes of hunger and poverty. Obviously, I am referring to ELCA World Hunger. ELCA World Hunger responds to neighbors around the corner and across the world, working through trusted global partners and companion synods. People who are suffering from poverty and hunger are connected to the resources they need to lift themselves out of poverty.
For those Lutherans who are busy engaging with special education needs for their children, illness or disease in their family, or myriad other issues – I believe it is enough for them to donate to ELCA World Hunger (here or here), and trust that their investment is in good hands. You can give (generously) to ELCA World Hunger and know that you are making a wise investment in fighting world hunger, and that your dollars are making a difference – even if you don’t have time to fully engage with the issues and become an expert on world hunger in your own right.
Erin Cummisford
Note: This post was written before the unprecedented earthquake hit Japan today. Please know that our prayers are with all in Japan and across the Pacific who are affected by both the earthquake and tsunami. Also know that ELCA Disaster Response is already in communication with our partners in Japan to learn about what’s happening and what will be needed. Current information is posted at the ELCA Disaster Response blog, and donations to respond to disasters – wherever they occur – are always needed. Please consider making a donation. Thanks!
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on March 12th, 2011 at 5:32 pm
Erin:
Thanks for your balanced and balancing reactions to David’s posts. Your observation would be more defensible if every citizen and every ELCA member was deeply engaged in his or her own ministry, here or out in the world. Most congregations languish as centers of engagement because the attention of their own members is given over to what just getting by. (You’re right about day-to-day living soaking up most of our attention and energy. Which begs the question: Why is it that just living takes up so much of who we are, so much more that there’s little or nothing left for the greater good that God calls us to fulfill? Could it be our profligate and over-stuffed ways of living day-to-day?)
David has asked the hard questions: What about deep engagement itself? Why is it that most associations that require deep engagement somehow languish while those that require little engagement flash and dazzle with their essential emptiness? Think of the energy these days that is given to filling little plastic bags with rice and spices!
As for trusting an institution to do the close-at-hand work necessary to undergird the far-away work, I’m not as certain as I used to be. Somehow the institutions that we suppose gather our collected energies just feel brittle and slow-moving, saying the same things over and over, disconnected from energy itself. That’s why I’m not as ready or willing to give to a system the attention that might better be given to a community close at hand.
For more on that thought, see McKnight and Block’s new book, The Abundant Community. I’m not sure it addresses everything you’re talking about, but the two authors do suggest how deep engagement — I like your term — can happen closer to home.
As always, I could be wrong.
on March 12th, 2011 at 5:38 pm
Bob:
You miss Erin’s point: Some folks don’t have the spiritual or mental wherewithal to engage in deep engagement, especially if it’s going to require time and energy they don’t have.
They give their widow’s mite — lovingly or foolishly, take your pick of Scriptural interpretation — and that’s good enough. Requiring them to have college degrees and the sophisticated tools of applied social pyschology or global economics — not fair and perhaps a little arrogant.
So give Erin her due, and listen to the folks who are only too happy to gather together what they have and give it away for the good of others — well-analyzed or not.
Their love for others shows, and that’s probably good enough!
on March 14th, 2011 at 10:15 am
I’m glad to see some conversation on this. I appreciate Erin’s reminder to us that we need to work out of our gifts and passions. As Frederick Buechner writes, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”
I have will have more to say tomorrow in a post, but for now I worry that my point has been misunderstood. I am not suggesting that people need sophisticated advanced degrees to do good in the world. I am not an expert in finance or education or cars, but when I make an important decision I do research. I try to figure out what will work best for me and my family. I suspect that this is how most people make important decisions.
When It comes to aid and charity, however, we are content to just give a little money and move on. If we are serious about alleviating hunger and poverty we will do our due diligence. I think it it misleading to call a minimal response love or to compare it to the widow’s mite. Love demands a deeper engagement and the widow gave all that she had.
on March 16th, 2011 at 10:11 am
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