On December 6, St. Nicholas put presents in the shoes of Dutch children. On December 13, candlelit girls in Sweden brought their parents breakfast in bed. Eight days of Hanukkah gift-giving started at sundown on Tuesday the 20th. And we’re cruising into the gift-heavy Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Kwanzaa, and, on January 6, El Día de los Reyes Magos—Three Kings Day.

Gift giving is much older than Christmas. We’ve been giving one another gifts since time immemorial, anthropologists suggest, in order to establish bonds with one another or to show hospitality. Giving a gift can show honor and respect–or intimidate by parading wealth and power. Psychologists say it’s good for us, and that there’s as much pleasure in giving as receiving. Maybe more, said Jean Paul Sartre, who called giving an act of aggression, because it puts the recipient under obligation to the giver. If that’s true, Americans are incredibly aggressive. Don’t you sometimes feel like raising your arms to fend off that barrage of Christmas presents—especially the ones you don’t need or like?

In the days when I wrote and talked about simplifying Christmas, the aggression of shopping and giving bugged me. But no more. I’m in Christmas no-person’s-land – the long empty stretch after kids and before grandkids, when there’s no one around to delight. My decorations are in storage and there’s no tree. I left my musical responsibilities in Chicago and have no choirs to accompany or Christmas Eve services to prepare. Freelancers like me have no staff party. The people on my gift list don’t need much—just a few bars of goat soap and beeswax candles and, of course, a year-end World Hunger gift. This year the holidays are feeling a little too simple!

In the midst of this dullness an online article (which article? which magazine? I lost the link and can’t tell you) asked a startling question: How have we been gifts this year?

Ticking off to-do lists and measuring year-end accomplishments and “progress” feels natural to me. So does totting up what I spent and what I gave. But to reflect on my inherent giftedness—who I have been and what I brought to God’s world in 2011 just by breathing—that’s tough. And profound. Goodbye, gripes about gifts as commodities, braggadocio, and aggression; hello, holy and gift-filled weekend.  Jesus may be the miracle, but all of us are gifts. Blemished, kicked around, miles from perfect—but gifts to one another, even if we don’t know why.

But I do know something about the gifts evident in this blog. Thanks to David, for using scripture to illuminate the systemic injustices that surround us. To Mikka, for her cheerful, practical, I-can-deal-with-this-too optimism about 7 billion earthlings and a 99/1 percent schism. To Jessica, for her passion about ending malaria. To faithful blog readers and commenters and World Hunger network people, for your commitment to walking your talk—a huge gift in our spin-happy world.

Gifts, all of you. And no purchase necessary!

Anne Basye, Sustaining Simplicity

And I am at it again…

Unfortunately, this will not be a Christmas post.  Click here or here for more seasonal commentary.  Or just reflect for a moment on the lovely image of the holy family over there.

As I was looking through recent posts and comments I realized that I have been speaking about hunger and poverty very much in terms of personal decisions.  Several of you in the comments rightly pushed back that systems and structures cannot be neglected–they often dictate the options that are presented to us.  Moreover, our individual choices can only be as efficacious as the system allows. I can turn off lights when I leave the room, but what about the carbon and particulate emission and when I need to turn the lights on?  I can support good work in Bangladesh, but the ~$487 million in annual tariffs that the U.S. imposes is really the bigger problem.  I can support migrant worker rights, but that won’t fix our fundamentally flawed food and trade policies with Mexico.  (Maybe you have a better example you would like to share in the comments…)

Here is the rub, and I mentioned this in comments on an earlier post, I am not convinced how well equipped the church (where I have most influence) is to address the systemic issues that perpetuate and exacerbate hunger and poverty.  Some limiting factors:

1)      There is no clear agreement on what the church should be.  Theologians may make proposals, and I have made a few assertions (that are very convincing, if I do say so myself), but pastors and congregants ultimately define the direction of their congregation (this seems to me to be in line with the two most recent social statements released by the ELCA where the “bound conscience” of individuals, congregations, and synods play a large role in moral discernment).  People participate in churches for personal solace, for community, for family programs, because they always have, etc.  The church has become a place where individual piety and preference play an ever increasing role.  Why this may be so is a topic for another day.

2)    The church itself is a part of the system.  The church often benefits from the same structures that keep people impoverished.  My pension depends on companies performing well. Large gifts to the ELCA generally come from those who are beneficiaries of the system.  Those of us employed by the church best not bite the metaphorical hand.

3)     Related to points 1 and 2, the church creates its own system.  Like any institution, the church exists to a certain degree for itself.

In light of these limitations, what can the church do? First, I think it is important (essential even) that the church be engaged in anti-hunger work.  It is part of our identity and key to our public witness.  Second, and related, we do have texts and traditions that present alternatives to the current system.  We need to continue to lift these up and remind people (especially those who identify as Christian) of God’s vision for humanity.  Third, I am convinced that the church is uniquely situated within the system to provide real relief and development.  We are nimble, low to the ground, and work out of longstanding partnerships.  Our accompaniment methodology is sound.

I’ve given you my thoughts, what are yours?  Where is my thinking limited?  How would you frame the issue?  Let’s talk! (Oh, and happy holidays 🙂 )

– David Creech

First, things first, Blog Colleagues—what “quack” wrote that title? (Apologies, I couldn’t resist!) Now that I have that out of my system, have you seen the new ELCA Good Gifts YouTube video yet? Check it out.

A group of animals are collected in a barn with a duck giving the orders:

“Stop looking at your feet…I’ve got an important mission for you guys. You [pig], you’re going to make sure kids have enough to eat. You’re [alpaca] going to help a family pay their medical bills. You’re [goat] going to help a mother start her own small business. You [cow], you will help a community escape poverty.”

This very cute, simple video paints a very real picture of the realities present in the world today. This video also highlights how ELCA World Hunger, through programs like ELCA Good Gifts, serves and works in the world.

Yesterday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton addressed the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugee’s ministerial conference in Geneva. In her comments, as highlighted by yesterday’s ELCA new service new release, Secretary Clinton shared the story of Fatuma Elmi, a Somali refugee who was resettled in Minneapolis and now works with Lutheran Social Services of Minnesota, an affiliated ministry of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and a partner in this church’s efforts to reduce poverty and hunger in communities.

In this highlight video from yesterday’s address, Secretary Clinton goes on to state, “Millions continue to be uprooted by wars or victims of persecution because of race, tribe, religion, political opinion or sexual identity. […] Because of these discriminatory laws, women often can’t register their marriages, the births of their children, or deaths in their families. So, these laws generate generations of stateless people who are often unable to work legally or travel freely. They cannot vote, open a bank account or own property.”

As people of faith, we are journeying through the Advent season. We are reminded fact that once, two people name Mary and Joseph were traveling to register in the town of Joseph’s birth as was decreed by the government. During their travels, a child, who we know as Jesus, was born in a barn to these parents. That child, at the time a refugee as he was in Bethlehem not his home town of Nazareth, was registered to receive his full rights in the community.

Today, we are reminded that everyday, throughout the world, women and children may not be allowed to register, remain stateless people, are unable to feed their families, pay their medical bills or start their own businesses to break the cycle of hunger and poverty that hold them bound.

Through the work of ELCA World Hunger, as highlighted by the ELCA Good Gifts animals, we are part of helping communities escape poverty and helping women, children and families find health and wholeness.

So, in the Advent spirit of hope and the words of our new found friend, the ELCA Good Gifts duck, “Now, go out there and change the world!”

A lot could be said today…

It is World AIDS Day, 30 years after the first case of HIV/AIDS was diagnosed in a medical journal.  Bishop Hanson released a formal statement here.  You can learn about the ELCA’s HIV and AIDS strategy here.  You can financially support healthcare related work of the church here.

I could also speak to the important climate change conference in Durban, South Africa.  I think I will have more to say when the conference finishes but for now I will say that the U.S. is not helping the conversation move forward (of course the obligations are asymmetrical–we hold a disproportionate amount of responsibility!).

Instead of delving more deeply into the previous two topics I would like to ask for the wisdom and insight of my readers.  I am perplexed.  I often wonder why we behave in less than rational ways.  For example, this last Sunday in the NYT, I read this fabulous opinion piece by Samuel Loewenberg on the current famine in the Horn of Africa.  The author notes that although the best way to avoid famine is to work on long-term development, we insist on waiting until there is a full blown crisis to respond.  Loewenburg reminds us that

A common misconception is that hunger crises are about a lack of food. Yet there is food in Kenya and Ethiopia, and even in many parts of Somalia. The real issue is poverty. The people affected are poor to begin with; when things turned bad, they had no recourse. In April the World Bank reported that 44 million people worldwide were pushed over the edge by skyrocketing food prices.

He continues,

Such a perspective is largely missing in our food-aid program. It’s like a health insurance system that waits until someone has a full-blown illness before he or she can get treatment.

What Loewenburg writes is not exactly rocket science (but it is very good!).  If you have systems in place to produce and distribute food effectively you will not be as subject to inevitable shocks.  We see this in the Horn of Africa, where the famine is most acute where the government is most dysfunctional–Somalia.  From the standpoint of the U.S. and people who only give to emergencies, why do we continue to work so ineffectively?  Why not start at the root of the problem (development) and work to create the systems and structures that will feed and support so many more people? (ELCA World Hunger recognizes that sometimes emergency aid is needed just to get to the next day, but it is part of a larger development strategy.)  So, faithful readers, are you more likely to give to an emergency or to support long-term development?  If it is the former, I would love to hear the logic.

Related, I was shocked to find that for ELCA World Hunger’s disaster appeal for the Horn of Africa, we had raised to date about $768,500 for emergency aid.  To date, our appeal for the tsunami in Japan has raised nearly four times as much (more than $2.8 million).  While I see the value in supporting people in Japan, and I know the money will be put to good use, I wonder why we are so moved to help a fully industrialized nation with it’s own emergency response and safety nets in place, but so slow to support the Horn of Africa where the need is much greater.  I have some ideas, but I would love to hear why you think a gift for Japan may be more compelling than a gift for the Horn of Africa.

The title warned you. Let the conversation begin!

David Creech