Hunger is about so much more than food
I’ve been watching the news of the Mississippi river flooding with interest. In any immediate way, it has nothing to do with me. I’m hundreds of miles away, going about my days. But at the same time, the news coverage...
A renewed sense of urgency
Two studies caught my interest last week. The first, from the UN, estimates that in October of this year, the world’s population will exceed 7 billion. If the current trends continue, in 12 short years (before my daughter is in...
Prophetic wisdom not my own
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...
Overwhelmed
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...
The crucified earth
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...
Knowing and doing
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...
Sharing the Good News!
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...
Tool of the day, the month, the year!
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...
It’s a small world
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...
Only connect
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...