Last week I wrote about water, and how I had been unusually conscious of it recently. Hence it was ironic that I opened a publication from the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee a few days ago that asked a series of questions about my water awareness. I could answer some of them, but not all. How about you?

• Where does you water come from?
• Is your water safe?
• Who makes decisions about the water in your community?
• Does everyone pay the same for water and sewage in your community?
• What happens in your community if a family cannot pay its water bill?
• Does your water or sewage provider have a plan for emergencies or rationing due to climate change?

If you know the answers, are you comfortable with them?

-Nancy Michaelis

What are you planning to make for dinner tonight? As a source of inspiration, I wanted to start this blog with the picture of the breaded, pan-fried scorpion that appears in the June 9 issue of Time Magazine. But I don’t want to violate any copyright laws, so all I can do is refer you to it. You can find it on this page, along with an video clip that shows you how to make it.

The same Time Magazine page contains an article titled, “Eating Bugs.” Being an American, just thinking about it makes me squirm. And yet the concept intrigues me, too. The author argues that bugs are eaten regularly in many parts of the word. They are high in protein, readily available, reproduce quickly, and take few resources to raise compared to the animals we Americans typically eat. Apparently, they also add a variety of delicious texture and flavor. When you consider the current food crisis and the fact that, according to the article, livestock accounts for 18% of greenhouse-gas emissions globally, why aren’t we eating bugs?

As far as I can tell, the only real reason is we can’t stand the thought. Which makes me wonder, is that a good enough reason? That our minds don’t like it? At what point would I be willing to defy the prevailing culture and eat bugs? Is it enough to think bug consumption is good for the planet and other people? A healthy way to expand the food supply? Or would I have to be desperately hungry before I would choke them down? Which is stronger: my cultural mind or my logical mind?

Personally, I’m not that attached to meat. I think it would be easier to be a vegetarian than to eat bugs. But then again, as long as they were chopped up and didn’t look so much like a worm or spider or whatever, I might be willing to taste a bug dish. Maybe.

Whether or not there is or should be U.S. market for entomophagy (the fancy term for eating bugs), it’s an interesting idea to consider! What do you think?

How many times have you thought about water in the past week?

Where do you live?

I am fortunate to live in a place (Chicago suburbs) with, relatively speaking, plenty of water. In a typical week, I don’t think about water much at all. Some days I don’t consciously notice it; it’s just always there. But in the past week water has inserted itself in ways I couldn’t help but notice.

I think my raised awareness started when I saw the hot water running out of the bottom of our water heater. It had to be replaced, a process that took about 24 hours. Not long at all in the scheme of things, but nothing brings awareness of convenience so well as its absence. Especially when you’re trapped in the house waiting for the repair man.

With my mind thus attuned to water and its absence, I noticed several water-related news stories. Yemen is experiencing drought and, consequently, food shortages. State politicians in the “Great Lake States” are meeting to discuss how to protect the Great Lakes as our water supply. An e-newsletter I received offered assistance in planting native landscaping, in part because it requires less water than grass and some other popular plants. The latest Mars rover is looking for signs of water on that distant planet. It seems that if I pay attention, I could relate a story I’ve heard about water issues pretty much every day.

But I don’t usually pay that much attention.

Still, water got my attention again. I was at Millennium Park in downtown Chicago over the weekend. It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day and I was sitting on the low wall/bench along the sides of Crown Fountain. Crown Fountain is a rectangular plaza, about 200 feet long, with a rectangular tower at each end. Water showers straight down the sides of the towers and floods the plaza with an inch or two of water. (Water also occasionally shoots several feet into the plaza from the towers.) Dozens of people were playing in the water on the plaza as I watched.

And as I watched, it struck me how strange all those people playing there really was. Essentially, the fountain is an inch of water on the ground. Sure, you can stand under the showering towers, and plenty of kids were. But many more were playing in the larger space of the plaza and its inch of water. A giant puddle, really. What’s so interesting about an inch of water on the ground? It wasn’t a hot day, with uncomfortable people trying to cool off. It wasn’t just kids playing. It was babies slapping at the water, parents chasing children, teenagers posing in groups and taking pictures with their phones, couples strolling through holding hands. It was all races and, I’m guessing, all economic levels. And it was happening in a place where water is abundant. It’s not like most of these people didn’t have access to water anywhere else. But yet they were all playing – some for quite a long time – in this giant puddle.

And it struck me, as it does from time to time, how elemental water is. How people – all people – are drawn to it, moved to cover themselves in it, share life and community in it, and celebrate a beautiful day in it. The fact that water is essential not just to living but Life is often removed from my day-to-day consciousness. But that day, our connection to this most basic substance of the planet was on display, and I am grateful that I was given the opportunity to sit down and notice it.

As we enter the summer months of heat and drying landscapes, I hope to carry with me the remembrance of my water-filled week. I will try to be mindful of not only my own dependence on water, but also the fact that everyone else in the world depends on it, too. May this understanding and awareness shape my actions and make me a better steward of this most elemental aspect of Life. And may you have your own similar moments.

Our family celebrated another commencement weekend as daughter Anne graduated with a Master of Divinity degree from Yale Divinity School. Graduations are a natural time to reflect on last things and things that last.

Last things
Graduations, funerals, and other rituals, services, and ceremonies help us observe life’s significant “lasts.” Important, too, are the “lesser” lasts of life…those times when we or someone close to us moves (on, up, out), grows (up, apart), transitions, retires. Those times often mark a change in relationships: a child begins kindergarten; a parent must give up driving; a favorite friend moves away.

Noticing, appreciating, and celebrating the lasts of life—sometimes through tears of joy, sometimes through tears of pain—helps us better recognize God’s presence and God’s gifts in all of life. Maybe being present as we remember the past and anticipate the future is a way to “deposit” lasting treasure in our hearts.

Things that last
And Jesus said, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal…. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:19, 21).

Lord, forgive us, for we are dense. We are so focused on the new, next thing that we forget to be mindful; we forget to be thankful. We rarely connect the dots between the balance of our spending (time and money) and the balance of our lives. Our calendars and our credit-card statements do not reconcile with our faith and life priorities. Full of stuff and full of ourselves, we wonder why we still feel empty.

Thank God for grace. Each day brings a new opportunity to sing “O God, our help in ages past, Our hope for years to come” (Evangelical Lutheran Worship 632). Each day brings new opportunities to faithfully treasure God’s gifts and blessings, to faithfully treasure the lasts, firsts, and middles of life.
—Sue Edison-Swift

As I was driving to work this morning, I heard an interesting story on National Public Radio. It was about how the global food crisis is affecting Afghanistan, and it started predicatably enough with statistics and stories explaining how horrible things are. The price of flour has tripled in the past year and 2.5 million Afghans have been pushed into food insecurity. Afghanistan does not produce enough food to feed its population, and many are now relying on international food aid.

I just had time to think, “Interesting that they don’t produce enough food. They certainly have arable land. After all, they grow lots of poppies!” when the reporter addressed that very point. And here was the first shred of good news I’ve heard in relation to the food crisis. The Afghan Commerce Minister explained that in several provinces, farmers have begun replacing poppy crops with wheat crops. With higher prices and less competition from imports, Afghan farmers can now make a profit from wheat. What’s more, growing poppies is illegal and dangerous, so given a viable alternative, some farmers are happy to make the switch.

My train of thought went on to the broader implications. If higher prices and fewer imports are making wheat farming profitable in Afghanistan, what other countries might experience the same effect? For years developing countries have been unable to compete with cheap commodity crops exported from the United States. In the long term, will the food crisis help that situation? And if more countries grow more staple grains, will it improve global food security? None of this musing is meant to minimize the current crisis. It’s ridiculous that it takes starving people to bring attention and change to the way the world feeds itself, and it doesn’t mean necessary policy changes will be made. But it’s also nice to think that some good might come of the current suffering. So today I’m choosing to dwell on the bits of hope.

Does it seem like each morning’s news brings a report about another global disaster? In my darkest “oh-no-not-another one” moments, I just want to turn the TV off, push the paper away, and set my internet news pop-ups to “entertainment only.”

But I can’t totally disengage. Even if I really wanted to, my colleagues and our ELCA doesn’t let me. News clippings sent inter-office, phone calls from pastors, gifts sent in by children with prayerful notes… all bring me back to the reality of our broken world.

Of course, there’s another reality as well, and that’s the promise of God’s abundance. I’m reminded of this as I read budget reports detailing spending plans for the overwhelming generosity we received last year for ELCA World Hunger Appeal. My World Hunger/Global Mission colleagues had made spending plans based on a modest increase in giving, but certainly didn’t know that an additional $2.5 million would arrive at the very end of the year! What amazing generosity sent on behalf of our neighbors- near and far- who live with hunger and poverty!

Many of these “surplus” plans focus on our response to the global food crisis, one of those awful ongoing disasters we hear about so frequently (read more and give here). Our gifts to ELCA World Hunger help alleviate this crisis through a two-pronged approach. First, we are providing funds to our partners for emergency food and other relief efforts. But even more importantly, we have made a concerted effort to invest in long-term sustainable development that will help our partners help communities better withstand the ups and downs of the food market. For example, because of the generous giving to the World Hunger Appeal last year, we were recently able to make a special gift to the Kenya Evangelical Lutheran Church to provide tools, supplies and irrigation for a community to grow nutritious produce for their use and for market. In the long-term, this will have a far greater impact that food relief alone, and we are grateful to be able to make this special gift possible through our companion church.

So, on the next bad news day, when I just want to pull the metaphorical (and literal) covers over my head… I’ll remember that God truly is at work in our world. God’s work. Our Hands. Thanks be to God!

Last Friday I set to work writing a litany remembering survivors of recent disasters. I was inspired by the hymn. “God of the Sparrow,” ELW #740, a recommended hymn for this coming Sunday, May 25. I was moved by the hymn’s text for obvious reasons and because it is written by Jaroslav J. Vajda, who recently died.

I drew from Isaiah 49:13, an assigned text for May 25, for the congregation’s response: “Comfort your people, O Lord; have compassion on your suffering ones.”

Friday afternoon, after finishing and polishing the litany, it occurred to me to check on whether my use of the hymn’s text necessitated copyright permission. Yes, it did. “That’s OK,” I consoled myself, “the litany uses next Sunday’s texts.” Today I learned that the permission needs to be granted by the estate of Jaroslav Vajda, and that will likely take some time.

So while I can’t post the litany as written, please take the opportunity to sing ELW 740 during worship next Sunday. It would be fitting, too, for the prayers of the people to include our neighbors suffering as the result of the earthquake in China, the cyclone in Myanmar, and the tornadoes in the United States.

Learn more about ELCA Disaster Response at www.elca.org/disaster

“Comfort your people, O Lord; have compassion on your suffering ones.”

That war is a cause of hunger is not news. War displaces people from their homes, livelihoods, and usual food sources. It recruits and kills working-age men who would otherwise support their families. It disrupts agricultural cycles and destroys fields. It maims economies, infrastructure, and people.

But one aspect of how war causes hunger did recently surprise me. It shouldn’t have. Even a moment of thought makes it blatantly obvious. But I hadn’t before considered how the ammunition of war causes hunger, sometimes for decades after the fighting has ended.

Here’s an example I read about from the United States Campaign to Ban Landmines. The US dropped 90 million cluster bomblets on Laos during the Vietnam War. Today, they estimate that about 10 million of those bomblets remain unexploded, and that the bomblets cover one-third to one-half of Laos. They further explain that 80% of the country’s labor force is involved in subsistence agriculture.

The choices are both obvious and bad. Either Laotians don’t use a lot of land that they could to grow food because it’s too dangerous, or they farm it anyway, understanding that people will be severely injured or killed when then accidentally hoe an old bomblet.

The International Campaign to Ban Landmines’ web site lists, in bullet form (munitions irony, there), the many problems land mines and cluster bombs cause. In addition to later land use, some of the key hunger-related problems include slowing the return of displaced people, slowing rebuilding efforts, environmental damage each time a mine or bomblet explodes, the resource strain to poor communities and governments trying to assist landmine survivors, and the ongoing danger to both people and livestock. Of course, some of these issues are common to any war. The difference is the length of time unexploded munitions extend the problems.

The good news is that the issue is getting some serious attention. Beginning today in Dublin, some 100 countries are meeting to discuss banning cluster bombs. You can read an overview in yesterday’s Boston Globe. And if you’ve been looking for an advocacy project, this may be an opportunity to explore. The United States is not attending the talks.

Key ELCA Global Mission and World Hunger partners in China are located in the Sichuan province, in the cities of Chengdu and Luzhou–south of the areas worst-hit by the earthquake. We’ve learned that they are safe and that seminary students and faculty, church workers, and hospital personnel are all helping with resue efforts.

ELCA Global Mission staff are in communication with the Sichuan Christian Council to assess needs and how best the Christian community can help, and our recovery assistance after this disaster will likely be channeled through these established partnerships. We expect that restoration of water supplies, care and support for children and vulnerable adults who have lost loved ones, and restoration of health clinics will all be critical needs as recovery plans take shape.

Please keep the people of the Sichuan province in your prayers, especially those who fear for the safety of missing loved ones and those who have lost family, friends, homes, and livelihoods.

Visit www.elca.org/disaster for updates or click here to give now to support the response efforts. Thank you for your prayers and gifts!