So a little conversation has begun…  Thanks to Erin for offering a response to my earlier posts (here, here, and here).  And now, if I may, respond to the response (which I hope will provoke more responses… to which I will then perhaps respond… but I digress).  My basic point is this: if we are truly appalled by the travesty of hunger and poverty in a world of plenty then our way of doing and being in the world will change.  We will take seriously those who live with hunger, respecting and engaging with them as a subject rather than just as an object.  We will think hard about the efficacy of our gifts, recognizing that some acts of charity (perhaps even many) may do more harm than good.

Erin’s response is helpful in many ways.  She is right to note that not everyone can be an expert and that many people are engaged in good causes, leaving them short on time, money, and/or energy for anti-poverty work.  It is true that ELCA World Hunger and its partners do much of the homework so that the average concerned person can simply give and know that good work will be done.  And I am flattered by the trust our donors put in us.

I don’t think I am advocating being an expert, but as I wrote in my response to Erin’s post (and Uncle Billy’s comment), when I purchase a car I do not get an advanced degree in car manufacturing or finance, but I do my due diligence to make sure I am making a wise decision.  I think the same should apply when we are working against hunger and poverty.  Due diligence, using the tools and resources at our disposal to make sure we are in fact helping and not hurting the situation.

As to Erin’s second point about being engaged in other good things (or just things in general), I would push back (gently) on a couple of fronts. First, we lead lives that are too busy.  Our busy-ness limits our ability to effectively address hunger and poverty.  If we are sincere in our desire to address hunger we need to remove some of the clutter from our life (an excellent Lenten discipline!).  Second, and related, I would argue that from its inception, Christianity has been marked by care for those who are vulnerable and marginalized.  Christian identity, who we are as the people of God, is defined by compassion, especially for those who live with poverty.  In short, from my vantage point, when we wonder what “good things” we should be about doing, primacy of place has to be given to anti-hunger and justice ministries.

Here is the rub (and I put this out there to provoke conversation): too often we don’t care enough to do our due diligence.  We have not made anti-poverty and justice work the priority.  We don’t want to get to know people who are hungry, we don’t really care if our charity helps.  We feel better when we keep those who are hungry at arms length and blindly believe that our charity does in fact help.  (I will say that this is not always the case, and I am regularly encouraged when I visit congregations and synods and see the justice ministries they are involved with.)

So here’s where I find the joy in Lent.  Lent is a time of introspection and confession.  It is a time to remember our baptismal covenant.  The point is not to feel guilty or shameful, but to honestly reflect on how well we live into those things we say that we value.  All that I am suggesting is that we (as individuals and as a community) use this time to ask the hard questions.  At the end of the day, this is work to which God has called us , and for which God has promised to empower us.

Thoughts or comments?  Let’s hear them!

David Creech

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!

On the eve of Lent (sigh… yes, it is my favorite church season…), some penitence is in order.  My last two posts are really revolving around the same issue.  The first asked the question of why it is so hard for us to really get to know those who are poor and marginalized.  I did not offer any answers (maybe in a future post?), and I am still curious to hear from others on this issue.  The second asserted that caring is not enough, we need to be strategic and intentional in our aid efforts.   The common thread (at least in my head) is the difficulty in tackling hunger and poverty.  Too often I am content to toss money at a project without getting to know the people I hope it will benefit or if the project is even worth doing.  Too often I keep the problem at arm’s length.

But this is not how I normally approach things that matter to me.   When my wife and I were about to buy a car, we researched makes and models, read consumer reports, checked blue book values, and explored financing options.  When we were looking to move we thought about the type of place we wanted to live, checked out the schools, imagined the play areas, calculated the monthly costs, and so on.  In both of these decisions, we read and talked and thought continually about them.  I even lost sleep (I think my wife did too).

I rarely lose sleep when I am contemplating hunger and poverty.  I don’t always do the research I need to do on an organization, I rarely know the people I am ostensibly walking alongside.

Now you may say, “David, you’re being too hard on yourself.  Those choices are big life decisions.  Where you give your time and money for aid will not impact your own life so deeply. ”  And that to me is the rub: why don’t I care more?  Why am I not more moved by the (avoidable) tragedy of hunger? Why is it that I can spend hours and days thinking about my life decisions (and even those not so big decisions like what cell phone carrier to contract with) but not be fully engaged in the truly life and death situations that hundreds of millions face every day?

I don’t have the answers, but I have been thinking about the questions a lot lately.  Maybe this is my own angst, maybe you share the same struggle.  Whatever the case, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

– David Creech

Now that I’m living down the road from the family farm, asked my mom in a phone call today, could I please do something about the fruit trees? Prune them, care for them, harvest them? Clear the weeds away from the overgrown lingonberries and blueberries? And line up some kind of charity for the unused fruit, since that’s not the tenants’ job?

I hadn’t realized that these trees and bushes had been neglected. Which got me thinking about food waste.

“Americans waste more than 40 percent of the food we produce for consumption,” says journalist Jonathan Bloom. “That comes at an annual cost of more than $100 billion. At the same time, food prices and the number of Americans without enough to eat continues to rise.”

Bloom’s website and blog, www.wastedfood.com, and his new book, American Wasteland: How America Throws Away Nearly Half its Food (and What We Can Do About It) detail the problem and lift up emerging solutions.  Like the dining hall trays temporarily or permanently banished by colleges like Luther and Wartburg. Like links to fact sheets that help stores and restaurants give away food safely. And lists of food recovery groups that are trying to connect wasted abundance with real need. (How are you doing on that Lenten meal of scavenged or recovered food that I suggested in my last post?)

My family’s fruit trees should be feeding more than the birds. Tending them, making  pies and jam, and sharing their harvest are small steps away from our culture’s “take-make-waste” paradigm (as Annie Leonard of Story of Stuff calls it).  But I’m always looking for new ways to do that. So sure, mom. I’m on it! Recovery, here I come.

Anne Basye, Sustaining Simplicity: A Journal

I was invited last week to join some colleagues at Episcopal Relief and Development as they hosted a luncheon for priests at endowed parishes.  I was invited in part as a thank you for my collaboration with them in preparing their new youth curriculum, Act Out.  In the course of the lunch, a priest told of one of his parishioners who had decided to leave a large bequest to another aid organization.  He asked, what is so special about Episcopal Relief and Development?  What is the compelling evidence to give to them instead? (I’ve heard the same question asked to me many times here at ELCA World Hunger.)

My colleague was put in a rather tough position.  He has a vested interest so it was  not as if he could speak as an objective observer.  His response was to defer to the bishop of the diocese of Chicago, who replied along the lines of, “Hey, if your parishioner wants to be generous like that, who am I to poo poo his Christian charity?” (My apologies for the crude paraphrase.)

I was not happy with this response.  (I let everyone at the lunch know this–and I will say, it is not every day you get to publicly disagree with the bishop!)  For one, supporting the work of your denomination’s anti-hunger program is a powerful public witness.   Your church’s work in the world sends a clear message about its priorities, and gives it credibility when it speaks publicly about justice related issues.  The bigger issue for me, however, is that wanting to do good is simply not enough.  Unlike the bishop, I will poo poo Christian charity if it is not accompanied by rigorous critical self evaluation (the bishop told me afterward I should submit my resume to the Gates Foundation… I thought it was a nice, subtle brush back).

There are many organizations out there that have fine anti-hunger ideals but in practice exacerbate hunger and poverty.  As one stellar blogger wrote, “A good cause is not the same as a good program.”  That same blogger recounts the following examples:

Think of the well-meaning missionaries whose desire to “save” children from post-earthquake Haiti almost resulted in loving parents and their children being permanently separated.

Or the recent effort by World Vision to send 100,000 misprinted Super Bowl champion t-shirts to people in the third world, improving their own overhead ratios by claiming the value of these gifts-in-kind as program expenses, while in reality sending goods that are readily available even to poor people in the target geographies, widely accepted by the aid community as having the effect of undermining local businesses and creating a culture of dependency, and otherwise causing harm to the very communities they purport to help.

Or consider the Battered Mother’s Resource Fund that never actually implemented any programs it was fundraising for and potentially scared women away from seeking help by falsely claiming that many shelters separate mothers from their children. It was also proposing a children’s ranch that experts said would do great psychological harm to kids if it were ever built. Despite the fact that it was ordered to shut down by the Attorney General, this organization still has a profile on Change.org, with 30 well-intentioned supporters. I bet those supporters read the mission statement and said “that’s a worthy cause.”

To these examples I would add those meal packing programs that may make the donor feel good and scratch that charitable Christian itch, but are also incredibly costly, both in dollars and on the environment.   And in the end, they flood the local market with imported food that otherwise could have been grown and sold to benefit local farmers.

So the take away?  An act of charity is not an end in and of itself.  We need to use that buzz we get from acting charitably to motivate us to do things that truly effect change in the world.  Otherwise it is just a narcissistic will to power.  If we are serious about our Christian call to seek justice we have to be a bit more rigorous in our decision making, especially around giving.  This means doing research and holding organizations accountable.

Thoughts?  I’d love to hear them!

David Creech

Carpooling – Coming Soon to Your Church?

Sharing the driving responsibilities by participating in a carpool can reduce stress, build stronger relationships with carpool friends, reduce commuting costs, and help traffic flow more smoothly by reducing the number of cars on the road.  Carpooling can also be an everyday act of faith, in modifying your lifestyle to better care for God’s creation.  The logistics are often challenging however  – where can you leave your car when it’s not your turn to drive?  Does it take more time to pick everyone up at home than it’s worth?

Identifying a central meeting point for carpoolers can simplify the logistics.  Does your congregation have a large parking lot that sits mostly empty during weekdays?  If so, you have just identified a potentially perfect carpool meeting point!   Of course, you will need to get the blessing from your church council and pastor.  Wouldn’t it be great if your little patch of asphalt could be put to good use, build stronger connections between church members, AND better care for God’s creation?

 It may be a good idea to identify specific areas of the parking lot for carpoolers, and make sure the church office has contact information so they can reach carpoolers if needed. 

If you decide to pursue this idea, I’d be interested in feedback on how it went.   My husband has been carpooling for several years – he and a co-worker take turns driving every other week – and it has worked well.  I’m sure they each appreciate a week off from the driving when they can read, check emails, or even catch a little extra sleep!  We are saving money on commuting costs as his car is used about 50% less than it used to be.   That’s been particularly nice as Chicago gas prices have stayed about $3/gallon or more.

Are you ready to give it a try?  Now would be a perfect time to connect with co-workers from church to see if your schedules can be aligned.  Let’s try practicing our faith in a non-conventional way – carpooling!

Erin Cummisford

In a recent JTerm course at Gettysburg Seminary I had the joy of revisiting one of my favorite ancient Christian texts, the Didache (also known as “The Teaching of the 12 Apostles”; the full text is available here).  The text is an early Christian baptismal catechism that explains to those who are about to be baptized the commitment they are making when they agree to be baptized.  Now granted, some people may be a little frightened by the strong emphasis in the document about “works,” but the point the Didachist is making is worth exploring further: our baptismal covenant will impact how we live our daily lives.

What is striking to me in the Didache is how often the text speaks of the commitment to those who are poor (see, e.g., 1.5-6, 3.5-8, 5.2b).  My favorite text (which I explored in this entry shortly after joining  ELCA World Hunger) tells the catechumen to “Let your gift sweat in your hands until you know to whom to give it.”

In the earlier post I pointed out that the Didachist ultimately assumes that the gift will in fact be given (so give!).  My recent thinking was directed to the command to know the person to whom you give (for the Greco-philes, the word used here is ginosko, the word that implies relationship).  Too often we are content to give money without getting to know the people to whom we give.  In my own life I know that too often I have been  happy to throw money at a problem (and I am not discouraging this, money is part of the solution) but  wary about really engaging the lives of those who are poor.  This ancient text challenges me to invest even more deeply in the lives of those who are poor and marginalized.  What have you done lately to better know those to whom you give?  What tips can you give us?  Leave a comment!

David Creech

Omnivore, locavore–yes, invasivore! Already on the list of new words for 2011, an invasivore is someone who eats species that are crowding out natural species. Click here to google the term (otherwise Google will try to convince you you’ve misspelled invasive) and you’ll find clever articles and www.invasivore.org ‘s tasty recipes for Himalayan blackberry (a pest in Washington state and 24 others), garlic mustard, kudzu, and annoying animal species like the Chinese mysterysnail, now invading many freshwater lakes.

While you’re smiling, note the bottom line: We humans are great at eating species out of existence, but when we’ve depleted their stock, we “farm” them or introduce a new, similar species from somewhere else. Thus, we farm tilapia for our dinner plates—but the little fish make the invasive list when they escape their “farm” and start dominating their immediate environment. And the Himalayan blackberry introduced to our country by Luther Burbank in the 19^th century is making a mess of everything.

Tasty, but pushy, and crowding native species out of their space.

Friends of mine are working hard to get the Himalayan blackberry out of their woods. I’m thinking hard about the wisdom of humans moving plant and animal species to new parts of the world—and planning to make a lot of blackberry jam and pies this summer.

Conflict food is another emerging trend. (Too bad conflictarian isn’t as catchy as invasivore.)  Started by artists in Pittsburg, the Conflict Kitchen only serves food from nations with which the U.S. has conflicts. Every four months, the look and menu changes. The Kubideh kitchen, serving Iranian food, was first. Now open is the Bolani Pazi Afghan takeout restaurant, created with local Afghan refugees and featuring events and discussions about culture and conflict. Coming soon: North Korea and Venezuela.

Food not Bombs, which I heard about last summer from a young woman at Holden Village, collects and cooks surplus and wasted food and serves vegetarian meals for free in many cities. You’ll get the basic story but not the specifics on the web, because it’s controversial; some of the food comes from dumpsters, and FNB often has skirmishes with local municipalities over food licensing. But I appreciate their strong challenge to our wasteful system, which wastes or discards about 40% of our food.

Lenten supper season will soon be upon us. How about replacing the same old thing with meals of invasive, conflict, or scavenged foods? As a cook, I’d love to investigate and prepare local invasive plants and animals. Or learn about a different culture, a conflict, and its implications as I cook a dish from a conflict country. Or even find out firsthand how much food is wasted in my town, by trying to scavenge something for a meal!  Besides challenging the cooks, all three would open bold new conversations around hunger.  Shall we give them a try?

Anne Basye, Sustaining Simplicity

What follows is an excerpt from a hunger sermon starter for this coming Sunday’s texts.  It is a reflection on Leviticus 19:1-2 and -18 (click here to read the text).  If you would to join the ListServ and receive weekly hunger related reflections on the lectionary, visit this Web page.

“You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.” (Leviticus 19:2)

Leviticus’ holiness code opens with the command to be holy because God is holy.  In the modern context, we can often equate holiness with piety or inner virtue.   Many of the Old Testament purity laws address ritual impurity, those exterior things that are a threat to holiness.  This week’s lesson adds some (perhaps surprisingly) concrete moral practices to the holiness codes.

Holiness in this text is not simply an inward disposition or avoidance of certain impure things.  God’s people are holy when they leave parts of their fields unharvested for those who are poor and marginalized to glean.  There are many amazing gleaning programs that are feeding many people (see, for example, Feeding America, www.feedingamerica.org; the Society of Saint Andrew, www.endhunger.org; and Foods Resource Bank, www.foodsresourcebank.org).  How else might we leave portions of our “fields” unharvested for those who are hungry?

God’s people are holy by paying just wages.  God’s people are holy when they look out for the interests of those who are vulnerable.  God’s people are holy when they do not profit from the blood of their neighbor (on what this might mean, check out “The Story of Stuff,” www.storyofstuff.org).  By loving one’s neighbor as one’s self—this is not an appeal to how one feels about their neighbor, but a call to action—we bear witness to the Lord.

David Creech

My office is a little crazy right now. A recent restructuring has led to a physical reorganization as well. Fewer people and changed departments mean that most of us are moving to new floors and cubicles. When the IT guys showed up to move my computer and phone today, I was at a loss. What work could I do without a computer?

At home we also have a computer (more than one, truth be told) and high-speed Internet access. We’ve had these things for years now, and only when the cable goes out do I realize how I’ve come to rely on them. From making plans to go out to dinner with friends, to looking up how late the library is open on Saturday, I stop at the computer several times a day.  When my young daughter asks me something and I don’t know the answer, she’ll respond, “Well why don’t you look it up on the computer?” It won’t be long until she’ll be doing it herself. I’ve seen her watching me, trying to figure out how. (As soon as she learns how to spell, I’ll have to get serious about those parental controls!)

All of this computer literacy is, for me and my family, second nature. Which is why I was a little startled to realize recently that my skills may not be up to snuff after all. Several of my friends in the corporate world now work with two monitors on their desks. You can drag things off the edge of one monitor and onto the other. You can read the email on one screen while reviewing the attached document on the other. I thought it was cool and a little Star Trek-y to watch one of my friends doing this, until I learned that it’s fairly common now, and I shouldn’t be so surprised. Then I was a little alarmed; how far behind are my computer skills? How well would I compete if I were looking for a job?

Luckily for me, I have education, friends, and resources that can catch me up pretty quickly. But what if you don’t? It’s not just about job skills, though that’s critically important. But it’s also about access to information, the amount of time you have to spend getting it, and the ease or difficulty of daily living. For example, we haven’t had a printed phone book in our house for years. I assume they still exist, but they probably won’t forever. Will everyone have computers by then, or will some people simply lack access to basic things like phone numbers and listings of plumbers? How much harder is life when you can’t readily get to the single biggest source of information? How big are the additional barriers to getting out of poverty? And for those of us in more fortunate circumstances, what’s our role in removing those barriers – or preventing them in the first place?

-Nancy Michaelis