{"id":71,"date":"2008-07-16T16:06:00","date_gmt":"2008-07-16T21:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/hungerrumblings\/2008\/07\/16\/%e2%80%9clifestyles-of-the-rich-and-the-famous%e2%80%9d%e2%80%94hypocrisy-guilt-and-the-%e2%80%9crealities%e2%80%9d\/"},"modified":"2008-07-16T16:06:00","modified_gmt":"2008-07-16T21:06:00","slug":"lifestyles-of-the-rich-and-the-famous-hypocrisy-guilt-and-the-realities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/worldhunger\/lifestyles-of-the-rich-and-the-famous-hypocrisy-guilt-and-the-realities\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cLifestyles of the Rich and the Famous\u201d\u2014Hypocrisy, Guilt, and the \u201cRealities\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s the creeping feeling I get when I am drinking my $4.14 USD designer coffee as I snub a woman asking for change on the \u201cL.\u201d It\u2019s the slight grimace I make when reaching for my favorite Gap t-shirt. It\u2019s the sinkhole in the pit of my stomach that falls out when I finish a delicious meal and the bust person (who is usually a person of color, hopefully making minimum wage, maybe experiencing poverty or hunger) silently cleans my plate, the plate that I would not exactly enter into the \u201cClean Plate Club\u201d competition.<\/span><\/p>\n

I have come to recognize these sensations as personal guilt feed by my realization that I live, work, and breath a hypocrisy, of sorts. As workers for peace and justice\u2026how do we wrangle with our own \u201cguilt\u201d that our \u201ctalk\u201d is sometimes in direct opposition to our \u201cwalk?\u201d<\/p>\n

Last week, July 7-9, 2008, The Group of Eight (G8) leading industrial nations met at the Windsor Hotel Toya Resort and Spa in Toyako, Japan on the holiday island of Hokkaido.<\/p>\n

EXTRA! EXTRA! \u201cTHE TALK\u201d Sounded Promising!
\nAccording to an article<\/span><\/a> by Environment News Service<\/em>, \u201cclimate change, world hunger, oil production and rice production, energy security and disaster reduction\u201d were top agenda items for the summit. One news source went so far as to call it the \u201cWorld Food Shortages Summit.\u201d Additionally, <\/span>an article<\/span><\/a> from the online newspaper, Telegraph<\/em>, states that on board his flight to the summit, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown commented:<\/span><\/p>\n

“If we are to get food prices down, we must also do more to deal with unnecessary demand, such as by all of us doing more to cut our food waste which is costing the average household in Britain around \u00a38 per week.”<\/p>\n

It seems as though the Prime Minister is a fan of simple living and good stewardship!<\/p>\n

EXTRA! EXTRA! THE WALK\u2014Maybe Not so Much!
\nAn article<\/span><\/a> by The Guardian<\/em> points out that dinner for the evening was entitled \u201cBlessings of the Earth and Sea,\u201d an eight-course, 19-dish dinner prepared by 25 chefs. <\/span>Click here<\/span><\/a> for the full menu of the dinner, and just in case you\u2019re wondering (because I know I was) according to The Guardian, the \u201cG8 Fantasy Dessert\u201d consisted of \u201ca special cheese selection accompanied by lavender honey and caramelized nuts.\u201d Mmm\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

There were 15 guests present at the meal, mostly comprised of \u201ckey\u201d leaders and their wives. Click here<\/span><\/a> for a picture of the dinner. Now, notice who is not at the table– namely any of the African leaders, from countries like Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Senegal, who were invited, but apparently only to the talks during the day. Additionally, since I\u2019ve breached the subject already, how many people of color are seated around that esteemed table\u2014at all?? Hmmm\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

Oh, and, as a full-circle note, the plane that Prime Minister Brown was on when he made his remarks, was allegedly chartered out of Texas and had to fly, sans-passengers, to pick him up in Britain. Classy.<\/p>\n

The total cost of the three-day, G8 Summit, according to The Guardian<\/em>, \u00a3238m or about $473,765,280.54 USD. That amount of money:
\n1. Could, according to the ELCA World Hunger \u201cGood Gifts\u201d catalog<\/a><\/span>, provide a nutritious meal for about 172,278,283 people at a congregation-based food program– that\u2019s a little over half the population of the United States.
\n2. Is over 23 times the ELCA World Hunger annual budget.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is easy for me to cast blame about these world leaders\u2019 hypocrisy and laugh at the ridiculous-ness of the monetary reality. However, I realized that the week-long, 2009 ELCA Youth Gathering in New Orleans, LA will cost an estimated $30 million USD, which is 1.5 times the ELCA World Hunger budget for the year.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong, events like the G8 Summit and the Youth Gathering, of course, have incredibly positive aspects\u2014I am in no way discrediting the importance of such events. There is most certainly much to be said about face-to-face, relational contact and cultural understanding, and the gathering of people together. After all, \u201cwherever two or more are gathered in God\u2019s name, the presence of God is with us,\u201d (Matthew 18: 20)!<\/p>\n

It all comes down to this. With the \u201crealities\u201d of costs and the limitations of resources and supplies available to us\u2014hey, Prime Minister Brown couldn\u2019t exactly have walked, biked, or swam to Japan, and I can\u2019t always be certain that my Gap t-shirt is completely legit — how do we continue on without being overburdened by our hypocrisy and subsequent \u201cguilt?\u201d<\/p>\n

Then again, wait, isn\u2019t guilt a selfish sentiment to begin with centered on\u2026ourselves??<\/p>\n

In my estimate, we usually do the best with what we have. BUT\u2014What if what we have simply just isn\u2019t good enough? Some choices do seem \u201cunavoidable.\u201d However, just maybe, all the \u201cunavoidables\u201d are, in fact, avoidable if we make the choice to challenge ourselves to think prophetically, outside the norms and the seemingly all-encompassing \u201cbox.\u201d<\/p>\n

Call me an idealist, but I do think that \u201crealities\u201d can be relative, and I like to think that we have an important stake in creating new paradigms in which to serve and live as people of God. Amen!<\/p>\n

References:<\/p>\n

“G8 Summit Opens with Climate Target Up in the Air.” Environment News Service 7 July 2008. 11 July 2008 .
\n“Man-Made Hunger.” Editorial. New York Times 6 July 2008.
\nWinnett, Robert. “G8 Summit: Gordon Brown Has Eight-Course Dinner Before Food Crisis Talks.” Telegraph 8 July 2008. 11 July 2008 .
\nWinnett, Robert. “G8 Summit: the Eight-Course Menu.” Telegraph 8 July 2008. 11 July 2008 .Wintour, Patrick, and Patrick Barkham. “Just Two of the 19 Dishes on the Dinner Menu At the G8 Food Shortages Summit.” The Guardian 8 July 2008. 11 July 2008<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s the creeping feeling I get when I am drinking my $4.14 USD designer coffee as I snub a woman asking for change on the \u201cL.\u201d It\u2019s the slight grimace I make when reaching for my favorite Gap t-shirt. It\u2019s the sinkhole in the pit of my stomach that falls out when I finish a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[161,162,159,158,160],"class_list":["post-71","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-post","tag-change","tag-g8-summit","tag-group-of-8-summit","tag-guilt","tag-reality"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n\u201cLifestyles of the Rich and the Famous\u201d\u2014Hypocrisy, Guilt, and the \u201cRealities\u201d - ELCA World Hunger<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/worldhunger\/lifestyles-of-the-rich-and-the-famous-hypocrisy-guilt-and-the-realities\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"\u201cLifestyles of the Rich and the Famous\u201d\u2014Hypocrisy, Guilt, and the \u201cRealities\u201d - ELCA World Hunger\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It\u2019s the creeping feeling I get when I am drinking my $4.14 USD designer coffee as I snub a woman asking for change on the \u201cL.\u201d It\u2019s the slight grimace I make when reaching for my favorite Gap t-shirt. 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