Good, Right and The Best

I love things that are good. This gets complicated when one may ask when something is good, is it right? Another may say, who cares if it is good, we want it to be the best!

During the last few weeks in April, I had the chance to travel in Texas with ELCA World Hunger Director Dan Rift visiting pastors, congregations and donors. My travel lasted nearly two weeks from Austin to Fredericksburg to Houston to San Antonio and Dallas. (I drove this route and will have to consider reconciling the carbon footprint left there).

LWF Green & Just: A Must!

Q: Do you want to learn more about the global communion of churches we, ELCA members, are part of– the Lutheran World Federation (LWF)? Q: Do you find global settings to be life-giving to your work and ministry? Q: Do you love to hear about new ideas and ways of thinking from different contexts?

A: If you answered “yes” to any of the above, this great online conference opportunity is a “must!”

“LWF Virtual Conference: Green & Just”

Saturday, 12 May 2012

*6:00 a.m. Central Time

Online Format

http://blogs.lutheranworld.org/wordpress/greenandjust/

REGISTER NOW

*This is an international, online, virtual event– Please note the time really is 6:00 a.m. (in the morning) central time.

Target group: Church leaders, people active in sustainable development, interested pastors and lay leaders, youth leaders.

Number of participants: 400-600

Format: green&just will be a virtual event. Interactions are in real time on the Internet. Most content will be shown in video. Questions can be asked in real time using text chat. There will be keynote addresses, Bible studies, webinar workshops and a “lounge,” where you can meet other global participants!

Languages: Sessions will be offered in all four official languages of the LWF, English, French, German and Spanish.

Technical requirements: A Computer with Internet connection and speakers/earphones.

Program: Click HERE for the full program.

ELCA World Hunger special suggestions:

6:00 a.m. CT Greeting with LWF General Secretary Martin Junge.
10:30 a.m. Bible Study with Dr. Barbara Rossing who was with us as theologian in residence in Florida at the 2012 ELCA World Hunger Leadership Gathering.
Check out the webinar (workshop) slates– they all look great!

REGISTER NOW

Please feel free to invite your congregations, hunger team members, youth groups and youth leaders and other interest parties. If you do participate, write us and let us know what you think.

Happy virtual conferencing!

Mikka serves as program director for constituent engagement and interpretation with ELCA World Hunger. To join the network and for more information on how you can get involved, write us at hunger@elca.org.

Staring at spreadsheets

The last few weeks I’ve been working with our database people, pulling out figures and figuring out the facts behind them. Sounds boring, doesn’t it? Actually, it’s been fascinating. And inspiring.

The figures add up to a wonderful fact: ELCA Lutherans are dedicated to making the world a better place. ELCA Lutherans are devoted to Christ’s command to love our neighbor as ourselves — and they act on it. ELCA Lutherans are so very, very generous.

There are volunteers who travel all over their synods, spreading the word about ELCA World Hunger wherever they go. There are congregations that gather up offerings for ELCA World Hunger four times a year — six times a year — every month. There are individuals who give once a year and individuals who give every month. There are people who give online with a credit card, and there are people who give by mail with a check. There are synods that make giving to ELCA World Hunger an item in their annual budget. There are Sunday School children who collect thousands of dollars in noisy offerings, youth groups who work to raise funds for the 100 Wells Challenge, women’s groups who organize Good Gifts Fairs for ELCA World Hunger. There are people who surprise us by leaving a gift for ELCA World Hunger in their will. There are others who plan with our Foundation to make ELCA World Hunger part of their estate. And there are hundreds and hundreds of pastors, bishops, and other leaders who work hard to make sure that the people of this church have every possible opportunity to hear and answer the gospel call.

Without the generosity and dedication of all these people and so many more, ELCA World Hunger wouldn’t be able to carry on the life-changing work that we’re able to do. Thanks to you, together, we’re able to make a difference in the lives of people all over the world.

Thank you.

Audrey Riley is a member of the fundraising staff of ELCA World Hunger.

Food loss vs food waste: which one is our struggle?

Just last week in my local high school’s cafeteria, eager young volunteers stationed themselves with scales in front of garbage cans. Weighing and examining every item about to be thrown away, they came up with a gross tonnage of discards and determined that only 5% of the “garbage” needed to go to the landfill. The other 95% could be recycled or composted.

While some of the compostable items were napkins and paper plates, most of it was food.

Food tossed into the cafeteria garbage can is considered food waste— food wasted at the level of consumption, that we prepare and eat in our homes, stores, and high schools, the ELCA Churchwide Office, our congregations, offices, and countless other institutions.

Food loss, on the other hand, takes place at the level of production. Failed crops are a good example. So are shortages triggered by hurricanes, typhoons, droughts, war and violence, and diseases like potato blight or wheat rust.

Through ELCA World Hunger, we’re all committed to addressing food loss. But the food waste that takes place in our own kitchens? Invisible, unchallenged, it’s our dirty little secret. Some might defend it as a privilege of our prosperity! Food loss happens everywhere. Food waste happens in high-income regions. Although this chart is a little hard to see, just look at the proportion of red to blue. Blue is food loss. Red is food waste. We North Americans have the biggest red chunk. (To see a larger chart, go to a cool blog called Discard Studies: Exploring Throw-Away Culture, also my source for the food loss/food waste distinction.)

So, fellow hunger advocates. What’s the plan for making our food waste as visible—and as reprehensible—as the world’s food loss?

For including our own shame in campaigns that focus on the world’s shame?

For adding a photo of our excess to the gallery of photos of other people’s lack?

For including our own practices in the hunger equation?

For looking at ourselves?

I can’t wait to hear.

Anne Basye, Sustaining Simplicity

Happy Easter Season! Happy Tax Season?

It’s that time of year when we celebrate the risen Christ who calls us into the world in service! It’s also the time of year when the April 15 deadline looms and many wonder, “What do I owe this year?” “Will I get a return, and if so, how much?” “Did I complete all the right forms and attach all the right documents?”

Women Thrive tweeted a very interesting whitehouse.gov resource last week called, “Your Federal Taxpayer Receipt.” This is a resource designed to help you understand how and where your tax dollars are being spent. Since you’ve got your tax info handy, simply enter your social security tax, Medicare tax and income tax amounts to calculate your receipt. (If you don’t have those handy, you can select a more generic income estimate, too.)

As I always wonder when I share my numbers with you all in these handy tools, can you trace it back to me somehow? Well, throwing caution to the wind, I can tell you all that I paid about an 18 percent tax rate in 2011 (My total income and payroll taxes on the calculator divided by my total income). Wowee. Let’s learn more.

Social Security and Medicare taxes make up about 20 percent of the taxes I paid, but the remainder of what you and I paid is on income, which go to a variety of services including:

national defense (24.9%)
health care (23.7%)
job and family security (19.1%)
education and job training (3.6%)
veterans benefits (4.5%)
natural resources, energy and environment (2.0%)
international affairs (1.6%)
science, space and technology programs (1.0%)
immigration, law enforcement and administration of justice (2.0)
agriculture (0.7%)
community, area and regional development (0.5%)
response to natural disasters (0.4%)
additional government programs (7.9%)
net interest (8.1%)

The percentages stay the same, but the receipt will give you the amount in dollars that your taxes were spent on in those categories. What do you think?

Psalm 107 and ELCA World Hunger: A Reflection

Easter Monday Greetings, All! Occasionally, we feature guest blog entries, and today is one such occasion. Here is a reflection by Pastor Paul Ostrem, Assistant to the Bishop, Southeastern Iowa Synod and ELCA World Hunger leader. During the Lenten season, we read Psalm 107 and Pastor Paul was struck by that reading while worshiping at Gloria Dei in Iowa City. Here is his reflection.

I almost “zoned-out” after hearing verse 2: “Let the redeemed of the Lord say so.” I was abruptly though briefly (thankfully) taken back to the Our-Savior’s-Radcliffe-Haugean-piety days of my youth and perhaps to my equally pietistic days at Waldorf College. “Speak up! Tell people you are saved! Let the redeemed of the Lord say so!” So people got up and gave their testimonies, sounding more pious than many of us knew they were, and I suppose from time to time I tried to do the same. And when the guitars came out, we sang with great enthusiasm in call and response fashion (at least through the first two lines) “I am redeemed by the blood of the lamb! I am redeemed by the blood of the lamb! I am redeemed by the blood of the lamb, filled with the Holy Ghost I am! All my sins are washed away, I am redeemed!” It was true in its own right, I suppose, but last night I realized that Psalm 107 is about a whole lot more once we get past verse 2.

The Psalm is about God feeding the hungry, giving water to the thirsty, bringing light to gloomy lives, freeing those in bondage, and delivering people from danger and even death. The Psalm speaks, section by section, of all that God does for those wandering in desert wastes, hungry and thirsty, for those sitting in darkness and gloom, for prisoners in misery and in irons, for those on storm tossed seas. Each section ends “Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wonderful works to humankind.”

I couldn’t help but think about ELCA World Hunger as we moved toward the end of the psalm, verse 35 and following where it speaks of how God “turns a desert into pools of water, a parched land into springs of water.” The psalm says that God lets the hungry live there and that they establish a town to live in. They plant fields and vineyards and get a harvest. God “does not let their cattle decrease.” (God’s Global Barnyard) Here is a picture of God working with the hungry in a way that provides more than relief. This is a picture of God in the work of development, creating a means of livelihood, even community with towns to live in.

And the Psalm pictures a God who holds those in authority, those in government, accountable to the needs of the poor. Verses 39-41: “When they are diminished and brought low through oppression, trouble, and sorrow, he pours contempt on princes and makes them wander in trackless wastes; but he raises up the needy out of distress, and makes their families like flocks.” This Psalm includes the responsibility of civil leaders in a comprehensive vision of caring for the needs of those who live on the edge and whose very livelihood is threatened. Therefore, the work of advocacy accompanies the ministries of relief and development in being a part of God’s mission to the poor and hungry in the world. “The upright see it and are glad!” (verse 42)

The Psalm ends “Let those who are wise give heed to these things, and consider the steadfast love of the Lord.” Being wise has something to do with another component of ELCA World Hunger, namely education. Part of that wisdom comes from telling stories of how God is at work even through our efforts in relief, development, and advocacy to care for those most vulnerable among us, how God uses human ingenuity, inventiveness and persuasiveness for the good of hungry people. This is how the steadfast love of the Lord becomes visible in the world, and we are wise if we give heed to it and see it.

Psalm 107 illustrates the acronym READ as a description of the comprehensive work of ELCA World Hunger: Relief, Education, Advocacy, and Development. “Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wonderful works to humankind.”

Thank you to Pastor Paul for this great reflection. Do you want to contribute to Hunger Rumblings? Write and let us know!

Indeed!

Just getting up in the morning can be a struggle. Seeking justice, championing a world in which people flourish, trying to discern God’s will and live into God’s culture in our (or any) times? Exhausting, and often discouraging. But then comes Easter. Refreshed, we start anew!

To celebrate, this wonderful poem by Ronald Wallace:

Blessings

occur.
Some days I find myself
putting my foot in
the same stream twice;
leading a horse to water
and making him drink.
I have a clue.
I can see the forest
for the trees.

All around me people
are making silk purses
out of sows’ ears,
getting blood from turnips,
building Rome in a day.
There’s a business
like show business.
There’s something new
under the sun.

Some days misery
no longer loves company;
it puts itself out of its.
There’s rest for the weary.
There’s turning back.
There are guarantees.
I can be serious.
I can mean that.
You can quite
put your finger on it.

Some days I know
I am long for this world.
I can go home again.
And when I go
I can
take it with me
***

May the Easter season infuse us with hope and renew our commitment to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our Lord all the days of our lives. He is risen indeed!

Anne Basye, Sustaining Simplicity

“For Everyone Born”: This is the Fast We Seek

The 10^th annual Ecumenical Advocacy Days for Global Peace with Justice was held in Washington D.C., March 23-26, 2012. About 800 people of faith, including at least five ELCA World Hunger Leaders (see below), were present to strengthen our Christian voice and mobilize for advocacy.

This year’s priority theme was “Is This the Fast I Seek? Economy, Livelihood and Our National Priorities.” Based on the text from Isaiah 58: 1-12, and from our first keynote speaker, the Rev. Dr. Margaret Aymer from the Interdenominational Theological Center, we were encouraged to “Cry justice! Lift up your voice like a trumpet!”

The ask that we as participants made to elected leaders was based on the Faithful Budget Campaign:

“As people of faith, we urge you to defend people struggling to live in dignity by funding programs that protect vulnerable populations here and abroad. Enact a faithful federal budget that serves the common good, provides robust funding for people struggling to overcome poverty and exercises proper care of the earth.”

As we sat together during Lent around this theme of fasting, I was particularly moved by the imagery. Our speakers challenged us that fasting from food makes no difference if we only do it for ourselves without thought for others. We were reminded that as people of faith gathered at the nation’s capitol, the fast week seek is the fast God seeks, from Isaiah:

“⁶Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? ⁷Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin.”

So, as children of the living God wander in the streets, through desserts and by sea—what is the fast we seek? In a country where 1.46 million household with 2.8 million children live on less than $2 per day (Elaine Nissenbaum, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities), what is the fast we seek?

For those of you who know me well, you may know that in my next life, I hope to be a movie score composer. Music is the way that my heart calls justice and at EAD, the perfect song was the answer that called to my heart.

“For Everyone Born” (Text Shirley Erena Murray, Tune Brian Mann)

For everyone born, a place at the table,
For everyone born, clean water and bread;
A shelter a space, a safe place for growing,
For everyone born, a star overhead.

Chorus:

And God will delight when we are creators of justice and joy, compassion and peace;
Yes, God will delight when we are creators of justice, justice and joy.

For young and for old, a place at the table,
A voice to be heard, a part in the song,
The hands of a child in hands that are wrinkled,
For young and for old, the right to belong. [Chorus]

For just and unjust a place at the table,
The user, the used with need to forgive,
In anger, in hurt, a mindset of mercy,
For just and unjust a new way to live. [Chorus]

For everyone born, a place at the table, to live without fear, and simply to be,
To work, to speak out to witness and worship,
For everyone born, the right to be free. [Chorus]

Lent is coming to a close, but the fast we seek is not an easy or time bound, church season kind of thing. Just as we are called to this fast in Isaiah 58, we are reminded in the same book that we are also called by name (Isaiah 43:1). For everyone born, called to the fast, called by name.

Are we ready to answer that call? Cry justice!

P.S. Guess the ELCA World Hunger Leaders pictured below!

Words of thanks, words of power

Not long ago I read a good book: Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion by Sara Miles. If you haven’t read it, I recommend it highly. (Her second book, Jesus Freak, is pretty good too.)

In brief, her first experience of Eucharist as an adult shakes her down to her shoes, and she acts on that by setting up a food pantry at her congregation, even though she has no idea where to begin. Some of her adventures along the way are hilarious; some are heart-rending. It’s a great story and Miles tells it well.

At one point, a group of high-school kids shows up to volunteer at the pantry. This isn’t their idea; it’s their teacher’s idea, and they’re not especially pleased about it. These are tough kids from a tough neighborhood and they don’t want anything to do with this goody-goody church stuff. But their teacher is tougher than they are, so there they are. Miles puts the kids to work.

As the pantry’s customers go through picking out their poultry and produce, they say “thank you” to the volunteers — to the ones bringing out more food from the back, the ones organizing the shelves, the ones bagging the groceries. Over and over, people say “thank you.” And that melts the kids’ hearts. That’s what turns their stony hearts into hearts of flesh, the words “thank you” spoken to them. It shakes them down to their shoes, that people respond to their acts of service (no matter how grudgingly offered) with thanks. Their lives are transformed.

Powerful, powerful words.

I know how good it feels to say “thank you” because I have so many opportunities to say it. The people who support ELCA World Hunger are so incredibly generous in so many ways — it’s inspiring how dedicated you are to helping people who are hungry. But what really amazes me is that whenever I thank a Hunger Leader for his or her generous service, what does that person always do? Turns around and thanks me!

From Miles’ story about the tough kids whose hearts were touched by other people’s thanks to that sweet little dance of “thank you/no no, thank you,” words of gratitude are powerful. As a fundraiser, I know that. As a Christian, I know that “thank you” is the only possible response to God’s generous and never-ending act of grace, poured out on us like a good measure pressed down, shaken together and overflowing. And that’s why they call it Eucharist.

International World Water Day: What’s your water footprint?

International World Water Day is held every 22 March as a means of focusing attention on the importance of freshwater and advocating for the sustainable management of freshwater resources. This year’s theme is “Water and Food Security.”

According to United Nations (UN) Water, there are 7 billion people to feed on the planet today and another 2 billion are expected to join by 2050.

Each of us drinks about half to one gallon of water per day– however most of the water we ‘drink’ is embedded in the food we eat. For example:

3963 gallons water= produces 2.2 lbs. of beef
396 gallons water= produces 2.2 lbs wheat

Again according to UN Water, “When a billion people in the world already live in chronic hunger and water resources are under pressure we cannot pretend the problem is ‘elsewhere’. Coping with population growth and ensuring access to nutritious food to everyone call for a series of actions we can all help with:

follow a healthier, sustainable diet;
consume less water-intensive products;
reduce the scandalous food wastage: 30% of the food produced worldwide is never eaten and the water used to produce it is definitively lost!
produce more food, of better quality, with less water.”

So, how much water are you using? To find out, try the UN Water “One Drop” plate activity.

On my plate, I put the foods I ate this morning and will eat for lunch: one bagel, cheese, two lettuces, a tomato and grapes. 134 gallons* of water were used toward those two meals alone (not counting the coffee on my desk, two glasses of water, one glass of juice, etc.).

What’s your “Water Footprint?”—the amount of water required to produce the goods and services you consume. The calculations are based on the water requirements per unit of product as in your country of residence.

My water footprint: 76,738 ft³ per year.** As a point of reference, an Olympic size swimming pool is 88,000 ft³.

The average American’s water footprint is 100,364 ft³. This takes into account the total amount of fresh water that is used to produce the goods and services consumed by the inhabitants of the nation. It includes two components: the part of the footprint that falls inside the country (internal water footprint) and the part of the footprint that presses on other countries in the world (external water footprint). Wow.

UN Water reminds us that, “At all steps of the supply chain, from producers to consumers, actions can be taken to save water and ensure food for all.”

Get started now:

-Learn about your water usage. Take the assessments above. Use more efficient shower heads, turn off the water while brushing your teeth, fix leaky faucets.

-Join the youth of the ELCA in raising $250,000 for water wells and related water projects through the “100 Wells Challenge!”

-Download and use the ELCA World Hunger “Water Toolkit” to explore the intersections between access to clean water and hunger.

Every “drop” makes a difference! Follow along on Twitter @UN_Water, #WorldWaterDay.

*Liters to Gallons Converter

**Cubic meters to cubic feet converter

(Bonus points: Can you guess why my water footprint is relatively lower than the average American’s?)