Change this something normal into something beautiful

Earlier this week, I promised I'd write about the mailer I received from Lutheran World Relief. Seeing as it's Sunday, and that apparently I can no longer sleep for more than six hours at a time, now seems an appropriate time.

This is the kind of fast day I'm after: to break the chains of injustice, get rid of exploitation in the workplace, free the oppressed, cancel debts. What I'm interested in seeing you do is: sharing your food with the hungry, inviting the homeless poor into your homes, putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad, being available to your own families. (Isaiah 6-7, The Message)

LWR is working on a campaign entitled "Fill the Bowl." The goal: $500,000 raised to support current, successful food growing programs. These programs support food security (moving away from monocultures), sustainable agriculture (caring for the land as a way of improving crop yields), and emergency food aid (currently to assist communities in drought-stricken Niger).

There is a disconnect in our nation. We are obsessed with food. We frantically hunt for the best diet. We seek out new options to excite our dulled taste buds. We self-medicate by binging on sugar, and counteract by refusing to eat for days. We seek food that is easy, that is simple, that fuels us, that is cheap but that does not factor its true cost to society.

I do realize we're in an economic crisis. However, we've brought it upon ourselves. Our fuel costs are soaring--and we have an agricultural system based upon cheap oil. While it is tempting, as food costs escalate, to choose what has the cheapest price ticket at the grocery store, it is not sustainable. It is time to consider the true costs, and to see how those costs are affecting the rest of the world, a world fixated on food not because there are too many options, but because there are too few.

If Isaiah were writing today, I think his words might be something like this:
The fast I choose is this: Each day, as much as possible, to consciously avoid foods which perpetuate the endless cycle of injustice. With this fasting I will choose foods which support the local economy, which promote fair trade, which elevate small-scale farmers rather than large corporations. Join me. Your food choices, do, in fact, help you to feed the hungry. Consider others beyond yourself.

I chose to include the devotional from Isaiah that the LWR flier uses because, once again, I feel that many Christians are neglecting to view food and food policy as an essential element of social ministry. Do justice. It is easy to send away a donation (and I do encourage it; please visit LWR). But the broader view--seeing that food choices impact local farmers, undercut societal traditions, devastate the environment--this is a view that is gathering momentum, but it is not moving quickly enough.

It's not meant to be easy. But true justice rarely is.


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Now playing: Jimmy Eat World - Chase This Light