This morning I received an email from George Johnson, retired pastor and former director of the ALC Hunger Program (the predecessor to ELCA World Hunger).  His thoughts were so provocative I felt they should have a broader audience.  George asks some hard questions that I suspect will elicit a variety of responses.  I suggest we have a dialog.  Feel free to leave comments below.  On to the nuggets:

+ Why do we Lutherans continually talk about the presence of Jesus in the sacraments but seldom talk about his presence in “the least of these?” Does one carry more grace than the other? for Lutherans? Why not say in our liturgy….”Come to the table and experience the presence of Jesus in the bread and wine, and then go out and experience the presence of Jesus in your neighbor.” Is that not more biblical?

+ When we say that ours is a ministry of Word and Sacrament are we focusing on a phrase that is easy to say without any responsibility on our part? Would it be just as good to sum up our ministry by saying…Word and Service?” When that is our calling and ministry then the world will sit up and listen. It worked for Jesus. Why not for his disciples?

+ I am constantly waiting for my Lutheran Church to talk as much about the poor as Jesus did. Not nearly as much is said in the scriptures about the sacraments as it said about bringing good news to the poor. We need not neglect grace in our proclaiming good news to the poor. Our pastors will notlikely do this unless they see and hear it from our bishops and churchleaders.

Let the conversation begin!

-David Creech

I’ve been feeling overwhelmed by the food issues of my life and our world this week. It’s partly an occupational hazard, working in world hunger. But it’s also just life, and sometimes it hits me harder than others. This week, it’s been a variety of small things that have added up to seemingly constant encounters with the problems and my feelings of insufficiency in addressing them.

Perhaps it started with the spoiled spinach in my refrigerator. One thing I hate is to throw away what should have been really good food, but this bag of organic spinach got away on me. I didn’t get around to using it quickly enough, and when I did finally open it, parts were slimy. This irritates me for a variety of reasons: 1) I wasted money paying for the organic food I didn’t use; 2) I didn’t cook the nutritious meal I had intended when I bought the spinach and instead probably ate something more convenient and less healthy (and therefore my family did, too); 3) I threw away food because I have so much of it available that I just didn’t get to it before it spoiled. That last one is espcially absurd in a world where so many are hungry. Irritating and self-inflicted, all of it.

Another day, I read that in a study of meat for sale in the U.S., nearly half of the samples tested were positive for staph bacteria, and most of the bacateria was a form that’s resistant to antibiotics. They attibuted it to the antibiotics given to animals to increase growth and (ironically) prevent infection in production facilities. That got me to thinking about where my most recent meat purchases came from, and, again, the risk to my family.

Even my dog’s food has been causing me challenges. He recently joined our family from a foster home where he had been eating a decent but ridiculously expensive food. We began the process of switching him to a better rated and less expensive food, only to have him throw it all up – more than once. Clearly finding something that we feel good about feeding him and yet will fit within our budget is going be more difficult (and unpleasant – for all of us!) than we had anticipated. Thinking about affordable, nutritious food for people is a big enough issue in our world. I admit: I hadn’t really considered the multi-million dollar pet food industry!

I could continue, but I’ll spare you. The point is that all these little, individual incidents add up. Some weeks I take it in stride, but other times I just want to quit thinking about food and eat whatever is easy, inexpensive, and tastes good. I can certainly understand how people end up eating fast food several days a week.

I’m guessing I’m not the only one who sometimes feels overwhelmed by all the ways that food decisions impact us and our world. So, I take it upon myself to say: cut yourself some slack. No one can tackle it all, all of the time. So throw away the occassional bag of spinach, and eat a less-healthy, convenient meal once in a while.  Do what you need to rejuvinate, and come back fighting! I’ll try to do the same.

-Nancy Michaelis

By way of coincidence, this year Good Friday falls on Earth Day, a recently established global celebration of our island home.  While at first glance todays texts would appear to have nothing to do with commemorating this little blue and green marble, I hope you will join me in reflecting on some of the issues at stake (and that in the process you and I might better understand who we, as Gods people, are called to be).

The death of Jesus is a cosmic event.  The world is changed.  Christ who is elsewhere described as the creator (e.g., Colossians 1:15-20) and the one upon whom all creation awaits for salvation (Romans 8:19-22) is redeeming the world.  The Christian hope of redemption is not some otherworldly reality, but a renewal of this earth, this home.  We get a glimpse of the earthly significance of Jesus’ death in Matthew 27:51 where we are told that upon his death the earth shook and rocks were split.

And the earth is in need of redemption.  It is groaning.  Today, when we remember Christs death, we see hints of our fragile planet suffering as well.  Weather patterns are less predictable, ecosystems are disrupted, species are disappearing, mounds of trash continue to grow, and on and on.  All of these shifts also take a toll on those who are poorest and most vulnerable.

So what has Good Friday to do with Earth Day?  To this day, God is redeeming and healing of all creation.  God calls us to be about that work as well.  Today at 3:00, when the bell peals, give thanks for God’s restoring work in Christ and pray for the healing of God’s earth.  Commit to following Jesus way of life and redemption.

-David Creech

This last Sunday I hosted a global food distribution simulation with the youth of my congregation. Some had access to more than they could eat, some had access to enough to eat (although not quite as much meat as they were used to), and some did not get enough to eat. (Several ideas for hosting hunger awareness meals are available from ELCA World Hunger here.) The exercise invited conversation around food production and distribution, inequality, consumption, and so on.

At the end of the meeting as we we winding down, one of the youth (a super bright guy), suggested that we already know enough about the issues, the real trick is mobilizing to action.  In general, his comment seemed apt (though I do think that there are some who need reminding of the realities of the world in which we live, and some who would identify as Christian need reminders of the commitments they made in their baptism and confirmation… but enough preaching).  We live in a world that is incredibly wired.  The media provides story after story (with images!) of poverty and injustice in the world.  We can see and hear about the realities of hunger and poverty with the click of a mouse.  We have days to remind us about crises related to the earth (April 22), malaria (April 25), food (October 16), and HIV and AIDS (December 1), to name a few.  Awareness is there, the question is what to do with that awareness (for some options, see this fabulous post by Bonnie Koenig as a response to Saundra Schimmelpfennig’s “Day without Dignity” campaign).

I am not sure how to mobilize (I’m working on it though!), and there are certainly pitfalls to action for the sake of action. Moreover, the problems are complex and the solutions can be costly. Nonetheless, it seems to me that we have to move from awareness of hunger to concrete (and constructive) action against it.  As a start, I suggest continued financial support of trusted organizations (like ELCA World Hunger :)) and using our voices to advocate for just policies (and the current debate about the budget it is an excellent time to challenge congress and the administration not to right the nation’s financial ship on the backs of those who are poorest and most vulnerable).

Allow me to conclude this post with some wisdom from the book of James: “If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,’ and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that?”

What are your thoughts?  How might we better work with and on behalf of those who are hungry?

-David Creech

I was reading Time Magazine a week or two ago, and it included a collection of articles on things that are going right in the world. Since that viewpoint sometimes seems in short supply, and since we are in the very hopeful season of Lent, I thought it might be nice to share the good news, so to speak. Here are some statistics from one of the articles that might make you a bit more optimistic about issues that cause hunger:

• In 1960, in the Middle East and North Africa,  85% of women had a child die before the age of 5. Today, it’s down to 10%.
• In 1980, 526,000 women died in childbirth worldwide. In 2008, that number dropped by more than a third, down to 343,000.
• Worldwide, girls’ school enrollments have been increasing – even to the point of matching or exceeding boys’ enrollments in parts of the Middle East.
• In 1984, there were 24 wars being fought in the world. In 2008, there were 5.

Another article in the series said that most people in Afghanistan now have access to basic health care, and school enrollment is up by 5 million kids since the Taliban fell.  Closer to home, the U.S. economy is getting a boost from the growing economies like China’s. In 2010, the U.S. has a 32% increase in exports to China, and overseas companies are investing in industry here, bringing jobs. “Not one of the 450 people who work in the U.S. for Chinese appliance maker Haier is from China.”

And in case all that consumption makes you nervous for the  health of the planet, still another article explained how Americans (especially younger ones) are reversing the trend by sharing more instead of buying. The number of people with Zipcar memberships has topped 500,000, and Internet sites that help people rent other people’s stuff are growing in popularity.

Here’s to hopefulness! May you have a wonderful Leten season!

Nancy Michaelis

Last fall my niece and I used a combination of bicycles, buses, and ferries to visit some friends about 20 miles away. Our multi-modal trip was so much fun that when we finished, Lily said, “I wonder if we could take public transportation all the way down to Sacramento to see grandpa and grandma?”

It was an appealing idea with one big obstacle: exactly how do you figure out all those local transfers? It’s easy in Chicago, where the main transit website links the city and suburban buses, el and commuter trains and can calculate any itinerary within about 40 miles. It’s not as easy where I live now: getting to or from Seattle means three buses, three counties, three transit systems, and three websites. Grrr!

Enter Google Transit, launched by Google “to make public transit information as easy to find as any other geographic information.” Type in your start and end locations and it tells you how to get there without a car!

Yes, yes, yes, and yes!! What an exciting and powerful alternative to our car-based society—a positive way to create more public transit riders, which can’t help but create even more alternatives to driving. Alternatives are the best way out of our current system of overconsumption and a grandiose entitlement. They anchor a competing set of ideals in real practices that we can start to adopt. As a proponent of active transportation, I think Google Transit is a reason to celebrate.

But can it get my niece and me to grandma’s house on public transit? Just for fun I checked. Sensibly, GT told me to take the bus to Skagit Station, enjoy the 815-mile ride on Amtrak, and then switch to the local bus when we step off the train in Sacramento. So I think we will!

Anne Basye, Sustaining Simplicity

Nehemias and a couple of the children of El Jardin show us plants in their garden

I recently had the good fortune to visit an ELCA World Hunger-supported project in the villages of  El Jardin and San Julian, Costa Rica. There we met Nehemias Rivera Medina, an unassuming and inspiring man who is teaching the residents of these communities about organic gardening. On it’s surface it sounds pretty straight-forward, but it didn’t take long to see the impressive depth, and to find a lesson.

El Jardin and San Julian are small, rural villages surrounded by banana and pineapple plantations. For a couple of generations now, the plantations have been, by far, the primary source of employment. In that time, community members have lost their knowledge of how to grow their own food. So Nehemias is showing them how to grow vegetables and fruit as well as plants that can be made into useful things, like shampoo, insect repellent, and arthritis cream. The economic situation in these villages is difficult, so having a source of supplemental, nutritious food and household products is helpful. They also hope to one day sell some of their products for extra income. Nehemias is teaching them about raised planting beds (so everything doesn’t wash away in the rainy season), soil fertility, crop rotation, insect control through polyculture, and complimentary crops.

One of the places Nehemias is teaching is in the secondary school in San Julian. We met a student who told us that before taking Nehemias’ class, she didn’t know anything about growing plants. But they’ve learned a lot. They’re growing cucumbers, radishes, celery, yucca, and rose hips at school, and what they grow is being used in the school lunch program. They’ve learned to compost the leftovers. As she spoke, it struck me what a small world it is. It sounded so familiar! These are the same types of things that are being done in American schools, in Chicago’s schools, close to where I live. We, also, have lost the knowledge about growing things. We, also, are trying to teach our children about better nutrition, especially in locations of low income that lack easy access to supermarkets and produce. We, also, are working in schools and through lunch programs.

But Nehemias’ aims don’t stop with what’s strictly practical. Beyond the techniques of growing plants, he’s teaching that eco-agriculture provides artistic, aesthetic, and therapuetic benefits, allowing people to use their gifts in the care of God’s creation – care that includes the plants and creatures around them as well as themselves. So much more than gardening, Nehemias teachs that the ecological sanctuary they are building is an alter constructed to life. The garden beds in El Jardin are not just rectangles. Some are shaped like hearts, or stars, or follow the contours of walking paths. They are shapes chosen by the children. Garden beds include flowers with the vegetables to attract bees and birds, but also because flowers are beautiful. They are constructed on church property, where anyone who wants to is welcome to participate. In addition to feeding the villagers’ bodies and providing income, Nehemias is showing them how gardens feed their communities, their souls, and all of God’s creation.  What a lesson for us all.

Throwing my two cents into the David-Erin-Bob/Uncle Billy discussion, I’d like to post these musings:

When we buy a car, we carefully research everything except our basic assumption: that we need one. Is there another way to move around the world that might be less damaging, like keeping the car we have and biking more and taking public transit, or sharing a car with a neighbor, or carpooling, or walking?

Of course, as “consumers” we are rewarded for making our personal buying decisions our most pressing concerns. How about we just stop calling ourselves consumers? Let’s not even be Christian consumers. Let’s be Christian citizens. Christian community members. Anything that helps lift the spell that traps us in “take-make-waste” so we can start discerning needs from wants, asking where our stuff comes from and who or what was harmed in its production, and understanding how our greed is connected to—or may even cause—other people’s need.

This is where charity becomes justice. That old saying about giving a man a fish? Sure, teach a man to fish—but don’t forget to ask who owns the pond. The world is full of competent people who know how to fish and farm but can’t access land or water—or whose land and water has been fouled by a multinational factory farm, mining operation, or Coca-Cola plant whose products are shipped to … Christian consumers.

The due diligence we need to be doing about hunger is about our own system. I say, start asking why. Why do I need this? Why was this product produced so cheaply? What hidden environmental or social costs are being paid by the people who made it? How’s their garden?  Unlike buying a car, the goal of questions like these isn’t to make us feel good about our own purchases. These questions lead us from consumerism to collective advocacy, because when a small why is amplified by other individuals, groups, or law-making bodies, it can change a system.

The bottom line why for Christians is: Why does so much of our “good life” come at the cost of other people’s welfare? Our system blinds us to these consequences. It’s time to ask our way out of this trance, to let the power of why open our eyes and start drawing the lines to world hunger that begin in our own backyards.

Anne Basye, Sustaining Simplicity

It does not take a lot to imagine the connections between conflict and poverty.  I have always thought of the impacts in terms of deaths, loss of productivity, damages to infrastructure, crippling of foreign trade and investments, increased disease, and so on.

Two recent stories made me think about other ways in which hunger and poverty are exacerbated and perpetuated in conflict.  First, I learned a couple of weeks ago that the annual cost of a single soldier in Afghanistan is $1.2 million (see page 8 of this report from the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments).  In total, we will spend $159.3 in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other unspecified purposes (outlined on page 7 of the same report).  It is proposed that we  spend $739 billion in national defense in 2011, which, when adjusted for inflation, is the highest amount since WWII (page 13).  Second, in our initial assault on Libya, we launched 110+ Tomahawk missiles.  Each missile costs $569,000.  The total cost of this assault was “only” about $62 million.  There are fears, perhaps justified, that this initial act, while not formally a declaration of war, will lead to war.  And this will of course mean more money spent.

Here is the kicker for me.  We are spending these huge amounts on war (which leads to all the things I mentioned at the start of this post) as we are slashing foreign aid programs and domestic social service programs.  I know that Gadaffi is a ruthless dictator and caused widespread destruction, and we are regularly assured that Afghanistan is essential for our national security, but is this really the best way for us to spend our money?  Do we truly want to eliminate those programs that help people so that we can fund those that harm people?  How many teachers and schools could be maintained with one (or 1,000!) less soldier in Afghanistan?   How many social programs could be funded without a day of Tomahawk barrages?  What would our world look like if our highest priority was eliminating poverty instead of eliminating “threats”?

Agree or disagree, let me hear it!

David Creech

Now that the calendar says it’s officially spring, one of God’s most precious gifts should regularly start falling from the heavens – water.  The Bible is full of references to water, and it is through water that we are baptized.  Water is a wonderful gift, but can often be taken for granted, or even become destructive.  This year when the rain comes, I encourage you to manage the water that falls into your yard (or church property!) in an environmentally friendly manner. 

How does rainwater management relate to care of God’s creation?  During a rainstorm, the excess water that isn’t immediately absorbed into the ground runs off your property, carrying any chemicals you may use on your lawn.  It travels across your driveway/sidewalk/street/parking lot gathering chemicals along the way, and into the storm sewer system.   This water ends up in local streams, rivers and lakes – as well as the contaminants it has picked up on the way.   Not only is this contamination harmful to aquatic plants and animals, but also to people who eat the fish from the lake, or take a swim at the beach.  It can also result in higher costs to treat that water if the polluted water happens to be a source of drinking water.  Excess rainwater can also cause erosion and flooding. 

Installing a rain barrel (or two) at your house and/or congregation is both environmentally and financially advantageous.  The rain barrel collects the water from a downspout, and saves it for future use in watering plants, gardens, or grass.  If you are a gardener, or just like to water your grass, using water from your rain barrel will also save you money.  It is also better for your plants as the water hasn’t been chemically treated.

Anything that slows down the flow of water helps recharge the water table by increasing the amount of time the water has to soak into the ground, rather than becoming storm water runoff.  A rain barrel reserves the excess water to future use, but a rain garden is another way to slow down the flow of water.  A rain garden is an area where excess rainwater is diverted after a storm and allowed to pool.  This area is planted with native plants that like “wet feet” and will allow the water to gradually recede. Here in the Midwest, plants like Queen of the Prairie, Blue Flag Iris and Obedient plant will thrive in these seasonally wet conditions and attract wildlife to your yard. 

Instead of allowing God’s precious gift of water to rush through your yard and into the nearest stream, I encourage you to slow that water down and enjoy it.  During the heat of the summer, it is refreshing to take advantage of saved spring rains to revive your thirsty plants. 

Rain barrels can be purchased online, or at local retailers.  You can even build your own –there are many different sites online that provide instructions.  What plants are native where you live?  Check out information about native plants that thrive in your area, as well as nurseries that sell them, at www.plantnative.org.  My neighborhood hosts a native plant business during the growing season (www.EarthWildGardens.com), but if you’re looking for mail order native plants suited to the Midwest, try Prairie Moon Nursery (http://www.prairiemoon.com).  Welcome to spring!

Erin Cummisford