I graduated from college about six weeks ago, and was thrilled to be done with papers, exams, projects, and school in general. But I’m a learner, so honestly you can’t keep me away from that stuff for long. I just finished watching the DVD series EarthBound. It’s an educational series about creation care, put together to help Christian communities learn about God’s call to care for creation, and figure out their role in doing so. The series is broken up into six different episodes: Created/Called, Here/There, Domination/Dominion, Me/We, Now/Forever, and Enough/Too Much. Each one is a little less than a half hour long, and explores the title topic from three angles. First, each episode raises a problematic issue in the Christian and Western traditions, then explores parts of the Christian tradition that can right these issues and deepen our understanding, and last it shows people and organizations that are doing awesome things to live out God’s call to creation care.

The DVD has a definite educational focus. It was created by a team of institutions and programs in and around the ELCA like Gustavus Adolphus College, Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, and the Augsburg Center for Faith and Learning. You can hear from some of the best biblical scholars, theologians, pastors, teachers, and lay persons across the Lutheran Church, which to me is pretty cool. I imagine the highly academic, “talking head” nature of the series has potential to bore some people (I wouldn’t choose this for a Friday night movie night). But since the series’ ultimate purpose is to be an educational tool, it does an excellent job of engaging watchers as learners with the capacity to really grapple with and understand the theological basis of our call to relate to the whole of creation.

I won’t shy away from labeling myself as a complete nerd; while watching I filled five pages of a notebook with my notes, and occasionally pulled out lecture outlines from my sophomore year Intro to Theology class in college to make connections, remind myself of some terms and concepts, flag my questions, and try to be a critical learner. There is a lot of compelling information packed into the 157 minutes of video, but for the purpose of this blog I’ll pull out a few ideas that got me excited.

The “Here/There” episode emphasized that salvation is not limited to life after death; God does not want to snatch us off this earth. God and the world are bound up together. It urges us to immerse ourselves in creation as a deliberative faith practice – one that I know I, and many others, find incredibly life-giving. I liked what the “Me/We” episode brought up about the radical individualism that goes along with what it traditionally means to be American. Recently I’ve been learning more and more that there is no such thing as a Christian. One cannot be a Christian by oneself, and the Christian community is not made up of individuals who can say, “My choices are mine alone and don’t affect others.” I was reminded watching “Now/Forever” that God’s timing and our timing are vastly different. Thinking short-term is exhausting! Rather than thinking we are in control of everything, we can trust in God and acknowledge that the vitality of the rest of the world is not ultimately up to us.

I could keep going but want to keep this a quick read, so if you’re interested, you can borrow the DVD from ELCA World Hunger and look for a film discussion guide coming soon in the Books and Media discussion group on the Table. As always, comment with your thoughts because I’d love to have a conversation!

Julie Reishus

I recently watched the documentary Food Inc. and it blew my mind. This documentary goes deep into the United States food industry to show viewers where our food actually comes from. This movie aimed to show how the way food is grown and produced is hidden from consumers, and the realities of the origins of everything we eat shocked me.

One point the documentary argues was that our food comes from what we picture in our mind to be a typical American farm. The film states that much of our food does come from farms, but large corporations often own the animals on those farms, and thus have the power to control how our meat is grown and produced. The result of this is overpopulated farms, with animals living in unhealthy conditions (both for them and for us once we eat them!). Cows are fed corn when they are meant to eat grass, leading to a build up of E. coli in their system, which then is cleaned with ammonia. Chickens are grown in a manner that leaves them too large to walk. Also, many people who work in food producing factories are mistreated and underpaid, and the farmers who grow the food often end up with debt from standards that the corporations force them to uphold. Food Inc. argues that this system is harmful to our animals, our health, and the people who work hard to put food on our tables.

Another important topic the documentary discussed was the government’s relationship with the food industry. The government heavily subsidizes corn, wheat and soy, which can be harmful to our health, especially for those in poverty. Food Inc. points out that we can buy a double cheeseburger for 99 cents, but we cannot buy broccoli for this price. They argue that the reason for this is that calories in the double cheeseburger are cheaper due to heavy government subsidies.

The documentary goes in depth on many other issues related to the food industry, and toward the middle of the film I began to wonder if there was anything in the refrigerator that I would be able to make myself for dinner! Thankfully, they showed success stories of farmers and producers who grew their products organically and safely and still were profitable. They stressed the importance of buying foods grown locally to reduce your carbon footprint. They also discussed past successes in the food industry, such as the push from consumers that led Wal-Mart to stop selling milk products with rBST. They are confident that if consumers treat their dollars as votes, we will be able to tell the food industry what we expect from our food, and the system then will change to benefit our environment, our animals, our workers, and our health.

Food Inc. is an eye-opening documentary that depicts one point of view of the food industry, and I would recommend it to anyone. I learned a lot and now think about food in a different way. While it does give some suggestions about how you can have a positive impact on the food industry, I was still left with questions about how I should act on this issue, so if you watch it I suggest going to their Web site for more ideas. Also check out their blog.

So, I leave you all with some questions. Have you thought much about how your consumption affects your health, other human beings, animals and the earth? Has it changed how you eat? Do you have suggestions for those who wish to take action on these issues? I would love to hear ideas from all of you.

-Allie Stehlin

Here at ELCA World Hunger we’ve been watching films on hunger and poverty and preparing study guides for your use.   Over the summer I will be highlighting some of the films that you may want to use for an adult forum or Wednesday night film series or just to watch and ponder on your own.  I will post a summary of the film with links to the film’s Web site and the discussion questions every Monday.  Happy viewing!

Human Footprint (2008)

Human Footprint explores the consumption patterns of an average person in the U.S. from birth to 77 years 9 months in a variety of interesting visual ways. The filmmakers follow two typical people in the U.S. through each stage of life, focus on a sample of consumer products relevant to that life stage, deconstruct some of the products into their raw material components, and build models that represent the average per-person lifetime footprint. The quantities of goods that are consumed by the average U.S. citizen in a lifetime are shocking. A pile of 3,796 diapers on the front lawn (made from 1,898 pints of crude oil and the pulp of 4.5 trees), 19,826 eggs dumped from a truck, 5,054 newspapers (made from 43 trees), and 28,433 rubber ducks lined up to represent the average number of showers taken (using 700,000 gallons of water over a lifetime).

A discussion guide to the film is available here.

It’s late and I just got home from a City Planning Commission meeting. Admittedly, I stayed late chatting with Commission members. I went as a member of the public as I was interested in their topic of the evening: housing. What I really got out of the meeting, however, had less to do with housing – although historic preservation and urban sprawl was rather intriguing – and more to do with the strategies of development. It made me think about advocacy, education, relief and development. Here’s why…

The town in which I currently reside is also the town that I grew up in. It was once a roaring 1920’s timber town and currently is in need of some development and economic upswing. Charmed by tall evergreens and a winding river, its environmental aspects keep your enjoyment, but it’s development is essential to the well being of its inhabitants. So there I sat, attending a government commission meeting (made up of volunteers) and thought: this, in a way, is like advocacy. This is where the public comes to voice their opinions and where the recommendations are made to generally plan the city. The Planning Commission affects things like housing, zoning, traffic and commercial/industrial/residential development to name a few. Then there was me. The local sitting in, fascinated, learning all about ordinances and stakeholders and all of the small things that go into making downtowns pretty and housing affordable that I would have never thought about. I was being educated. After the meeting we chatted about jobs, local skills and the economy. My town is on track for being awarded a large state project, but really, this project’s designated end (it is slated to last about five years) makes it more so a relief to the area than a true development. So that’s why we were at the Planning Commission meeting; to talk about the future, and ways that the area can develop in the long term while the relief strategies are aiding us in the mean time. The real kicker was realizing that none of this happens without money. Grants, developers willing to spend good amounts of hard-earned cash, city taxes and more are needed to revitalize a community. It’s the same idea in my community as it is in places around the world.

There, staring me in the face, were the four things that ELCA World Hunger also uses to make development happen at home and around the world. Sitting in that living example, it became very clear to me that each part of the process is key to the end goal. I will continue to learn more and more each day about the root causes of hunger and poverty, advocate on behalf of those who need my voice, help in necessary relief efforts and opt for sustainable development whenever possible. I’ve also realized just how vital any donation that I can give is to getting the job done.

I really appreciated Mark Goetz’s June 11 post, “Ziplock Bags and Deliberated Choices” about decisions that we don’t make ourselves but let the dominant cultural “flow” determine for us.

Swimming upstream is hard work. Ridicule is usually involved, as Mark has discovered as a washer and reuser of plastic bags. But take heart, Mark! Your commitment can help turn around a culture.

Mr. and Mrs. Barham were the parents of my best friend Janet. Today they would be Abe and Val, but in 1970, one didn’t address one’s friends’ parents by their first names. One also took for granted that smokers could light up whenever and wherever they pleased: grocery stores, movie theaters, offices, everywhere but church!

In California in 1970, it was more acceptable to march against the Vietnam War than to ask someone to extinguish a cigarette. When a dinner guest drew out a pack and asked my anti-war, non-smoking parents, “mind if I smoke?” they were too polite to refuse.

The Barhams weren’t. Early members of GASP—the Group Against Smoking in Public—they put up signs, passed out fliers, and lobbied city hall and state government to begin considering the rights of non-smokers. For teens like Janet and me, trying to fit in with the prevailing culture, their passion and commitment were really embarrassing. I would shrink down low in the car whenever they stopped to pick up a new batch of supplies.

Forty years later, the clouds of smoke that once fogged restaurants and church social halls have been banished forever. And the Barhams did this! Their willingness not just to resist but be considered wackos invited others to question and eventually dismantle one huge cultural assumption and replace it with a new one. Now the rights of non-smokers are upheld by a whole system of laws and customs and behaviors that relieve shy people of the need to say, “why yes, I do mind.”

Val Barham died a year ago; Abe Barham died in May. I wonder how many old GASP posters and bumper stickers are turning up this week, as Janet and her sisters clean out the house where they lived for 55 years.

When people feel discouraged about whether we’ll ever stop driving, ever stop polluting, ever stop throwing things away, ever stop doing whatever dismays them and start doing something healthier and fairer, I bring up the Barhams. To me, they’re proof that when individual commitment links to a larger process of advocacy, the fringe becomes the vanguard becomes the status quo.

Keep washing those plastic bags, Mark!

Anne Basye,  Sustaining Simplicity

Hello readers! I’m the other World Hunger intern for summer 2010, Julie Reishus. Today is day eight of this amazing internship experience, and so far every day has been energizing, convicting, affirming, and challenging. I am sincerely thankful to God for the opportunity He’s given me to learn and serve within this incredible organization. I think I’m in the right place!

A little background on me: I grew up in Naperville, IL, and this past May I graduated from Hope College in Holland, MI, where I studied communication and ministry. While in college I had a number of experiences that contributed to my passion for seeking justice, and in particular the deposit placed on my heart about injustices related to hunger. I may explore these influences in more detail in future blog posts, but here’s the quick run down: first, my personal eating habits, and consequently the way I think about food, changed dramatically when I became a vegan. Second, I took a class on World Christianity that opened my eyes to an understanding of the missio Dei that refuses to separate social justice from evangelism. And third, I shared a powerful solidarity meal with 17,000 other people at the Urbana09 student missions conference.

I am thrilled to be learning and working at ELCA World Hunger this summer. I’ll be working on projects like developing the Taking Root curriculum for Vacation Bible School and adult education, and specific opportunities for volunteers to help ELCA World Hunger meet its education, advocacy, and fund-raising goals. I’m excited to blog here every Wednesday and also engage in conversation with you on Facebook and at the Table.

I enjoy dancing, drinking tea, summer sun, concert-going, reading, theology, making delicious vegan meals, learning constantly, the company of good people, Twitter (follow me @jujubeee), and above all worshiping, serving and loving the triune God who first loved us.

Julie

My name is Allie Stehlin and I am an intern at ELCA World Hunger this summer. I am a senior at Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota and am studying Political Science, Peace Studies, and Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies.

I first became interested in the issues of hunger and poverty worldwide when I took a mission trip to Tanzania with my congregation in high school. It was there that I met a boy with polio; a disease easily cured in the Western world, and saw a hospital without running water. The vast inequality in wealth and resources hit me hard, and I decided then that I wanted to devote my future career to making this gap between the rich and the poor, the hungry and the full, a little smaller.

In college, my classes focus around social justice issues that have continued fuel my passion for creating positive peace in our world. This past fall, I had the opportunity to spend the semester in India studying Social Justice, Peace and Development. This was a great chance for me to dig deeper into the topics of hunger, poverty, the environment, gender, caste, globalization and development and meet with those affected by these issues.

I am very excited for the work I will be doing this summer at ELCA World Hunger, and am looking forward to learning more about hunger and poverty. Stay tuned for more rumblings from the interns and the rest of the ELCA World Hunger staff!

-Allie Stehlin

The following was written by guest blogger, Mark Goetz.

I love ziplock freezer bags. They are handy and durable, seal well, and don’t take up much space in a drawer waiting to be used. In the freezer and refrigerator they don’t take up any more space than their contents do. I’ve used them to hold meat, chili and spaghetti sauce in the freezer. I’ve used them for the same things in the fridge, although the kids have objected (on aesthetic grounds) to a plastic bag full of gravy or mashed potatoes or chocolate pudding. With the “double zipper, fresh shield: tough on the outside, fresh on the inside” quality they are a delight and at only pennies a bag I can afford to throw them away after a single use.

When we lived in the village of Bohong, Central African Republic, there was no garbage. Everything was used – multiple times. Empty cement sacks were used for writing and wrapping paper. Tin cans became water glasses or storage bins, especially if they had a reusable lid. Bottles, plastic or glass, became canteens. We washed and saved almost every empty everything and periodically, nomadic Fulani herders would stop by and ask if we might happen to have any containers they might use.

Most things in the market, including bread, peanuts and meat, didn’t come wrapped and we (and everyone in the village) had our (their) own tote bags of one kind or another. When we did have a plastic bag, we’d wash it and dry it and reuse it in the kitchen or the market until it wasn’t possible to use anymore.

We had to re-adapt to American culture on our return. In many ways that was harder than adapting to village life. After some months back in the US, empty 2-liter pop bottles spilled out of the pantry when I opened the door. We couldn’t throw bottles away.  I imagine we were still expecting visits from wandering nomads that could use new canteens. Saving what for us was garbage, but for someone else was of value, was no longer a sustainable practice.

We’ve continued to use canvas tote bags for grocery shopping but, for some reason, not for other kinds of shopping. Up until a few years ago we were still washing plastic bags, out of habit, I suppose. But lately I noticed that we’ve been throwing away plastic bags, even our tough durable ziplock freezer bags, after a single use. In some way, it doesn’t seem right.

When our children were little, we used cloth diapers. It was a deliberate decision based on the personal financial situation of a graduate student with a family to support. We did not make a conscientious decision to use canvas market bags and to reuse plastic bags. It was just a lasting habit developed from normal life in another culture and it seemed right. I didn’t make a decision to start throwing away used ziplock bags either. It was just another habit I picked up from our own culture in the last few years. I’m not even sure when I started to do it.

Now, I’m not really thinking about ziplock bags, or the amounts of disposable plastics in American landfills, or the inadequacy of landfills in the developing world, or the great garbage patches found in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. I am really thinking about decision making, or more specifically, choices that I didn’t really make.

We’ve been around the global block so to speak, having lived in a number of countries other than the USA.  And that experience has affected the way I see my world and the way we live. (I suspect that friends think we march to the beat of the different drummer and that she plays in syncopated rhythm.) Some “life style” choices were deliberate decisions e.g., the neighborhood we live in, the vehicles we drive, maybe the clothes we wear. These types of decisions are mostly a balancing act of costs, convenience and some sense of social morality/accountability. But I wonder how many decisions I really don’t make; the decisions I don’t recognize, where I just go with the social/cultural flow.

Mark Goetz is a consultant and mediator in Montana. This post first appeared on The Table, a social network for volunteers working with ELCA World Hunger.

So what’s the scoop on twenty-somethings and vegetable gardens? My brother and I were talking this afternoon about all the people we know of, our age, who are beginning to grow their own food. I think that this is very cool, and I too love a good fresh leaf of lettuce or handful of blueberries, but I also wonder…what’s the motivation for our age group? The friends we thought about ranged from Seminary students to general contractors and insurance agents; different people from different walks of life. As my brother and I are both in our twenties, I wonder if all those films we saw in school are finally settling in? We have grown up with the likes of Fast Food Nation and Super Size Me, forming an awareness and interest in more recent documentaries like Food, Inc. and The Cove. Could it be that our generation is finally putting their foot down on all those chemicals disguised as food? Is it that when we mix this media with the growing trend of rooftop and community gardens, then add in our recent independence and the financial crisis that we’re simply reaching critical mass? Or is everyone else just beginning to till up their grass for gardens as well, but they are simply a bit further from my radar?

Here are my questions:

To my fellow twenty-somethings – Do you grow your own food? If so, why…is it all those documentaries, are you trying to save a buck, is it the rooftop garden scene? Or did you grow up with it, so it just seems natural? Perhaps something else entirely?

To more seasoned adults – When did you find that you started to become interested in growing your own fruits or vegetables? Has it been in recent years; are you also enjoying the organic gardening trends and responding to the economy? Or is this just something that begins in your twenties?

Thanks for your thoughts, and thanks even more for your gardens!

~Lana

Last week I posted the suggestion that the way in which depictions of those who are hungry often make them less than human.  I wondered how we could possibly see their full humanity (along with all their power and dignity)  by only seeing their limitations (that in many cases are simply material).  A couple people responded with thoughtful ideas along the same lines (props to Kris and Mary!).  A blog post I found today via my Twitter account (thanks @meowtree!) raised a similar question.  The author writes,

And what would communities in general think if they saw the kinds of marketing appeals that go out in their names. … I’m bothered by these kinds of appeals, imagining a photo of my own children plastered on a ‘needy children’ billboard or direct mail piece somewhere, thinking about what that might do to their self-image or my image of myself as a capable parent.

The point is well taken–how would you feel if that less than flattering image was all that was known of you?  Her concern also perhaps reveals a bias we have against those who receive aid.  We too often assume that those receiving aid have some flaw (and the images of people who live in poverty don’t always help with that!).

The fact is I have been the recipient of all kinds of aid.  My dad was a doctor, and rewarded me with cash for good grades.  My mom (and, yes, you too dad) created a loving, safe environment.  They had time, energy, and resources to give me a well-rounded childhood experience.  I had the help of a good education system and a stable government (things that I did nothing to create or sustain).  My skin color and gender gave and (continue to give) me many unearned advantages.  Why is it that it is so difficult for me (and people like me) to recognize and admit all of the aid that we have been given (both monetary and otherwise)?  And why is it so easy for us to categorize (and even denigrate) people who did not receive a similar aid package?  What sort of soul searching do we need to do?

I have digressed from the question implicit in my first post on this topic (namely, is there a place for a charity mindset), and I hope to engage it next week.  For now, I’d appreciate any thoughts or responses you have on the topic!

– David Creech