It is snowing at my house. I do not remember having a November snow since I was little. This morning, as I was watching the snow fall I thought back to a book I read as a young girl. It was either from the Little House on the Prairie series or In the Land of the Big Red Apple, but I do not recall which one. In the story, there is a party in the wintertime and all of the kids take plates outside and fill them with a mound of snow. They then cover the snow in sweet molasses. (I remember thinking how neat it was that there was shaved ice back then, too!) I wished that I too, could go to a barn dance and join the other kids in making this homemade treat, yum!

Well, today it is snowing and as I touch the snow I reconsider my will to eat much of it. Left-overs from a snowball in the face, no problem; but willfully consuming an entire plate of it, not so much. I wonder about what is in the frozen water, like dirt, pollution from cities, and other environmental poisons in such a seemly pure white layer of natural beauty. I think it is a bummer that I cannot confidently fill my plate with snow. This reminds me of how important caring for creation is, and how much it can affect even the simplest notions in life; in this case – an old-time sweet winter treat.

~Lana Lile

As the genetically modified food debate continues, I thought I would add my two cents through a bit of an everyday experiment. Yesterday, I went to the grocery store in search of a GMO free meal. I wondered how hard it would be to find these foods, how expensive they would be and what I would discover along the way. A lot of food crops in the United States are genetically modified. Corn, soy, canola and cotton top the list. You may not normally think of cotton in relation to your food, but check many candy bar labels and you’ll find cottonseed oil. I tried my hardest to not buy any foods with ingredients like “malodextrin” (usually a corn product), because I couldn’t guarantee that it didn’t come from a genetically modified plant. Perhaps this sounds a bit overboard, but it was my intention to be thorough!

I started with two main assumptions. 1: Organic foods are not genetically modified. I looked this up through the USDA Organic web site. According to their National Agricultural Library, “Organic food is produced without using most conventional pesticides; fertilizers made with synthetic ingredients or sewage sludge; bioengineering; or ionizing radiation.” 2: Foods in the USA do not require genetically modified ingredients to be labeled as such.

So off I went!

I pulled in to a big chain grocery store, grabbed my reusable shopping bags and headed in. Before I left I decided what I wanted to eat that night. I thought that if I had a goal in mind, I would be better prepared to get serious about my ingredients. I started in the produce aisle. Shopping list here: greens for salad and two pears. Admittedly, this wasn’t that difficult. I grabbed some organic Spring Mix for salad and a couple of organic pears, stopped at the nut display for some organic walnuts (who knew you could buy organic nuts??), checked out the refrigerated salad dressing and moved on. To the non-refrigerated salad dressing aisle I went.

My goal was vinaigrette, either raspberry or balsamic. Admittedly, I had no idea if these were really worth worrying about when it came to GMOs. What I found were ingredient battles like corn syrup vs. evaporated cane juice and salt vs. sea salt. There weren’t any balsamic vinaigrette options with an organic label. I thought that was good, all organic might be boring. I ended up with a roasted hazelnut and extra virgin artisan vinaigrette. I was sold by the sea salt, evaporated cane juice, lack of ingredients I couldn’t pronounce, and blaring capitalized word “VEGAN” on the back label. Although there were those two ominous ingredients that I couldn’t verify…who knows what “natural flavor” means and I can neither confirm nor deny the presence of GMOs in the canola oil. Well, we can’t be perfect.

On to chicken! It took awhile but I finally found the organic chicken. Why, you might ask is this important to my GMO free meal? Well, it’s really more about what the chickens ate than anything else (that and my will to eat meats without added hormones and antibiotics.) The label on this meat said, “100% organic vegetarian fed diet.” Okay, no, I’m not a farmer and yes, I know that chickens are technically omnivores, but in this case my goal of no GMOs continued – none in the chicken feed, none in my chicken!

Next, brown sugar. Although I already had sugar at home, I wanted to make sure that every little part of my meal had been scrutinized. So, for my candied walnuts, I thought I should start comparing sugars. Once again, I ran into the issue of my limited knowledge…are GMOs an issue with sugar? I decided not to take any chances. I bought an organic store brand of light brown sugar that clearly said on the label, “…made from organic sugar cane grown without the use of synthetic pesticides or genetic modification.” Bingo! Two more ingredients and I would be ready to start cooking; bread (or rolls) and gorgonzola cheese.

I thought bread was going to be tough. Rumors abound about GM wheat crops. So I searched high and low to find some super organic bread. It had all sorts of reassuring ingredients, down to the organic soybean oil (and that one is rather important as 89% of soybean crops in the US are genetically modified). So far, however, all of my online research claims that there is no genetically modified wheat currently being grown for sale anywhere in the world. Very good to know!

Last, but not least was the cheese. I ended up with Amish blue cheese. Yum!

Dinner!

What did I learn? First off, that there are a lot of ingredients in the food that we commonly eat. I ended up with foods containing fewer ingredients nearly all of which I could pronounce. Second, there were unexpected ingredients that I didn’t anticipate having to think about. For instance, I didn’t anticipate the need to check out the soybean oil in bread. Third, I noticed that sea salt, organic cane sugar and vegan labels were common place on much of the food I bought, whether or not it was labeled “organic.” Also, the organic brown sugar I used to candy the walnuts smelled rich like molasses, amazing! While it took me longer to shop, as I read the labels so thoroughly, and was more expensive than conventionally grown foods, for me, it was worth it.

In the end I had a very scrumptious dinner that also felt great to eat. It was full of color, somewhat low on the food chain and involved all of the food groups.

And that is my experience shopping for a GMO free dinner. Also, if you haven’t deduced my meal yet it was a lovely mixed green salad with blue cheese, pear slices, candied walnuts, chicken and a slice of bread with a little extra blue cheese on top.

Thanks for reading!

~Lana

This is the seventh in a series of posts highlighting hunger-related activities that happened over the summer at ELCA Outdoor Ministry locations with the help of Education/Advocacy grants from ELCA World Hunger. This post is from Mt. Cross Ministries in Felton, California.

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As we started incorporating hunger awareness activities into our Day Camp program, the activities have fit right in with our daily Bible encounter time, but especially on the day that we talk about Jesus feeding the 5000. As we read the story together, you can see on the faces of the campers who haven’t heard the story that they, like the disciples, are surprised. They concentrate on what would have prevented 5000+ people from eating (not enough food, not enough time to feed a crowd that large, etc.).  5000 is a big number! The surprise in the story is not just that Jesus was able to feed so many with so little, but that a child was the one that had the food. Adults who have heard the story many times tend to forget that it was a child who helped, but this is significant for children to hear. Too many times our children are told that they have no impact or cannot help, but we can all help to feed those who are hungry. Hearing that a child was the one who provided what he had helps kids think about how they can help others using what they have. Not only does this story empower kids to help feed others, but it encourages them to problem solve as well. In the story the disciples faced issues of food distribution and time, as we do today on a larger scale. Encouraging our children to help think of ways to help with these issues makes sense, because they, like all of us, make food choices that impact others.

In one activity we have the kids from Day Camp represent the world. They are divided into groups by how much they would have. When they see how many of their group would not have enough to eat, statistics become real for them. Activities like this change hunger from an abstract problem affecting people across the world to something that they can help to solve.

Each week our Day Campers have been planting vegetable seeds to take home and to give away. Like those seeds, I am hopeful that the seeds that we have planted in these children this summer will take root and help them to grow into faithful adults who have a positive impact on the world.

Mariel Spengler
Director of Day Camp Ministries
Mt. Cross Ministries

This started as a thought, turned into a blog idea and ended as a poem. These were my Saturday afternoon thoughts as I interacted with one of our most precious resources…

It’s raining all around me. I can hear it on the windows and I felt it as I walked through the streets of town this afternoon.

It seems as though water abounds.

The ocean is near, a creek runs behind my house and the river is not a half mile away.

It seems as though water abounds.

I washed my hands, dirty from building a fire for Autumn warmth. The tap provided an unending stream.

It seems as though water abounds.

A memory returns. A colleague suggesting that we often are not truthful with ourselves as we try to conserve and accompany and aid.

It reminds me that for many, clean water does not abound.

~Lana Lile

I once met a man who not only doesn’t own a car, he has never driven one, and has never had a driver’s license. A peace activist, he sees this as ministry, as radical non-compliance with a warlike dominant culture. To him, a road doesn’t connect a community to resources; it makes a community vulnerable to military invasion.

This man lives in New York City, where car-free living is  easy. In the rest of the United States, the default for getting where you want, when you want, at any hour of the day, is driving.

Though I have no car, I do have a driver’s license. Still, I’m sure this license-free Methodist pastor and I see the world in similar ways. Without a car, you cultivate a different set of  traits and strategies. Creativity, for starters, because to get from point A to point B means considering many options, including buses and trains, a bicycle, riding with a friend, or walking. Planning is required to convert those options into an actual trip.

Cooperation is critical. When you don’t have your own set of keys, you’re very aware of other people’s agendas. No bus goes to your destination? Well, you can’t bully someone into driving you or lending you a car. Instead, you ask: how can everyone’s goals be accomplished here?

Sharing a ride in Rwanda

Flexibility comes in handy when it’s time to shift plans or face the fact that you’re not going anywhere, and are staying home instead. Gratitude infuses every step of the trip. If you’re on a bus or a train, you’re grateful it’s going when and where you want it to. If you’re sharing a ride, you’re grateful for the driver and plans that coincided.

Humility happens when you realize how many different people and forms of transportation helped you safely reach your goal. Car owners aren’t, I find, very humble. Crossing an intersection, I look into the faces of people who think they do own the road, and wish I would get out of the way. Besides tempting us to feel way more important than others, cars blind us to the system that supports driving. How many times have you heard people rail about subsidies for Amtrak or public transit—overlooking the public works budget that creates and maintains city streets and traffic signals, county roads and interstate highways? Few notice this “invisible” system of support; they only see the cost of their own car and their gas.

Finally, there’s competence and resourcefulness. Yesterday, my niece and I bicycled 2 miles to catch a county bus, took a long, interesting trip through farms and town and Indian reservation to a nearby city, switched to another bus, took a ferry, and rode our bikes to the island home of some friends. By the time we reversed our direction and reached home, biking against the fierce headwind that came up in the afternoon, we felt pretty clever. And grateful, of course!

Creative, flexible, grateful, humble, ingenious—I love being in the world this way. Yet not three weeks ago, visiting Chicago, it took exactly 15 minutes behind the wheel to turn me into an angry maniac honking and swearing at someone blocking her way!

How does driving make you feel?

Anne Basye, Sustaining Simplicity

I was texting my dad this morning encouraging him to vote.  He wryly commented on my newfound interest in politics, noting how when I was in college I was not so keen on engaging it.   And I must confess that indeed I was late to experience the joys of fully participating in a democracy.  I always felt that my vote was fairly small (it is only one out of so many) and that the political system was somewhat tainted (which it is–money and corporate interests play too large of a role).   I’ve come to terms with these struggles (it is a messy system, but it is the best we’ve got).

The bigger issue for me, and I continue to grapple with this question, is the relationship between the church and the state.   Jesus was executed as a threat to the state, and early Christianity was born in an apocalyptic milieu that in many ways saw the reign of God in opposition to Caesar.  In this context the church and state live in a very uneasy tension.  And just to be clear, I think the early prophetic critique of and challenge to unjust systems and structures needs to be reclaimed by the church.

That said, since I’ve begun to engage anti-hunger work more deeply, I’ve come to see the profound need for political activism.  These are some of the reasons why I voted today:

1) The problems that face those who are poor and vulnerable are systemic problems.  Laws and policies keep people impoverished, I need to vote for people and policies that will protect and empower those who are marginalized.

2) The church’s voice on social issues is key .  People of all faiths need to live into and speak out about the values that their tradition holds dear.  As I noted above, the church has a strong tradition of standing up for social justice (sorry, Glenn Beck, you are wrong).

3) It is a huge gift to have a voice (thanks to Christine Mangale in our Lutheran Office for World Community for pointing this out to me).  And it is a relatively small thing for me to raise my voice with and on behalf of those who are hungry.

If you are still not convinced, or want to think more about the question, check out Paul Hanson, Political Engagement as Biblical Mandate.  But before you do, get out and rock the vote!

-David Creech

The word of the Lord came to me: Mortal, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel: prophesy, and say to them—to the shepherds: Thus says the Lord God: Ah, you shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fatlings; but you do not feed the sheep. You have not strengthened the weak, you have not healed the sick, you have not bound up the injured, you have not brought back the strayed, you have not sought the lost…

Ezekiel 34:1-4

Is this Law or Gospel? I think it depends on if you have food or not!

-David Creech

Today, I am blogging about something I just found out about. It is backed by the United Nations and my favorite sport. So what is today’s subject? A very cool event called the European Match Day against Hunger. This last weekend soccer teams all over Europe rallied with the purpose of advocating against hunger.  According to an article from the Food and Agricultural Organization of the UN, the “Austrian league ambassador Herbert Prohaska said: ‘The main purpose of the Match Day against hunger is to show that all of us can fight against hunger and poverty. Because everywhere in the world people are playing football this is a perfect stage for this message’.”

A soccer coach myself; I cannot help but to agree that this is the perfect stage for a call to action. One reason is because children everywhere kick around soccer balls. In fact, a few months ago I blogged about an indestructible soccer ball that was being distributed to children in war-torn areas. Also, in many areas of Europe soccer is the most popular sport to watch, follow and play. This means there is potential to inspire an entire continent to think about hunger, take action against hunger, and care about hunger! So it is both a stage used by those who are hungry and by those who can advocate for them.

I think that Hristo Stoichkov of the Bulgarian League put it well when he said, “We must do everything in order to guarantee for all children around the world the love and food they need. That is their sacred right”.

Learn more about the European Match Day Against Hunger Here:

http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/46667/ico/

View photos here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/1billionhungry/sets/72157625078678417/

~Lana

This is the sixth in a series of posts highlighting hunger-related activities that happened over the summer at ELCA Outdoor Ministry locations with the help of Education/Advocacy grants from ELCA World Hunger. This week’s post is from Luther Point Bible Camp in Grantsburg, Wisconsin.

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Outdoor ministry is, at its core, about growth. Many of the campers start their week either not wanting to be at camp or thinking that they have been here so many times they think they cannot possibly get something new out of the experience. Yet God works in wonderful ways and by the end of the week most do not want to leave. Whether it is the relationship with their counselor, the worship experiences, or the exciting games, walls are broken down and the campers are opened up to new understandings our connections with God, creation, and each other. 

Here at Luther Point we were able to watch and wait as a garden grew this summer, thanks to the Education/Advocacy Grant from ELCA World Hunger. There was much patience and unknown throughout the process, as well as some not so fun work in some very warm weather. In spite of the weeds, rain, and humidity, there is something very refreshing about being able to see growth in a garden. Watching a tomato or a green pepper develop gives a sense not only of accomplishment, but also of gratefulness. 

Most importantly, the growth of our garden helped our campers to grow this summer.   They could see the parallels between the growth of a garden and the growth of faith and come to a new understanding of God in their own lives. Moreover, they went home with a new realization that they do actually have a voice when it comes to world hunger and that they can take steps against it in fairly simple ways. 

The produce grown in our garden was sold at our annual Summer Celebration at the end of our summer season. We set up a Farmer’s Market in addition to our traditional craft and quilt auction and many supporters of Luther Point happily walked away with some fresh and beautiful food. We ended up selling over $500 of produce, all of which will go to ELCA World Hunger.

Jesse Weiss
Program Coordinator
Luther Point Bible Camp

Following up on Julie’s post from last week, I’ve been reading Samuel Torvend’s Daily Bread, Holy Meal (worth a read–accessible yet sophisticated, with study questions to boot!).  Here is just a taste (pun intended) of the delights contained within.

If Jesus’ proclamation in word and deed pointed to God’s just and peaceful reign in human life and history, then might it not follow that his disciples are also called to serve the reign of God, albeit as discerned in Jesus of Nazareth?  From this view, the function of the church is not to maintain itself but to serve the reign of God as revealed in Jesus of Nazareth.  In a consumer culture such as North America, however, it is easy to imagine these days that the church’s purpose is to order its life around sustaining or “growing” churches rather than serving the reign of God’s justice and peace.

Torvend goes on,

But we have to ask: was Jesus executed because he wanted to “grow” a worldwide organization (or as some might say, a “gospel community”) or because his understanding of of the reign of God proved to be too troubling for those who claimed to “rule” or “reign” over his land and people?

How are we doing at living into Jesus’ vision of the reign of God?

-David Creech