Hunger

Giving Stone for Bread

/ Robert D / Leave a comment

“Many of our well-meant charities are of this sort. We blunder in our efforts to help poor needy people, because we do not get their point of view. We do not live our way into their lives. There is no fit between our gift and their need. They get a stone for bread.”

Quaker Theologian Rufus Jones, The Inner Life (1916), pg. 48

Today has been an interesting day in terms of my diet. I began the day with a waffle made with ground chickpeas and oatmeal. It was decorated and made colorful by a handful of sprinkles. After lifting weights later in the morning, I had a protein heavy lunch of fishy meatballs made with perch, breadcrumbs, aromatics, and egg. Dinner was what I will charitably call octopus buns, which is what happens when you steam Chinese steam buns over a steamer with big holes for steam, especially when you don’t give them time to rise properly..

All in all, a relatively cheap day. The fish was the only non-staple and it ended up being around $2.33 for the perch. A little bit of flour, some oats, breadcrumbs, and two eggs. Simple fare, but it tasted just fine to me.

Perhaps I won’t win any culinary awards for today’s menu. It is not always easy to live within one’s means, but I normally pull it off pretty well most days. Would my kids turn their noses up at what I made today? Yeah, but life is good regardless.

In my devotional today, I read through the words of Albert Edward Day in “Disciplining and Discovery.” The section talked about the various attributes of Christ and the following paragraph caught my attention:

“Frugality: ‘How hard it will be for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God’; ‘for our sakes he became poor that we through his poverty might be rich’; ‘man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God’; Frugal in food, he fasted long days in the wilderness. Frugal in sleep, he spent whole nights in prayer alone with God. Frugal in personal relationships, he loved people but could get along without them if his truth offended the, ‘will ye also go away?’ ”

Albert Edward Day as quoted in “Guide to Prayer for Ministers and Other Servants”

Frugal in food, sleep, and personal relationships… A tall order that perhaps lies in an order of difficulty from easiest to hardest. I know that food is easier to live with frugally than sleep. I have spent long nights in prayer and would far rather live with “Wonder Bread” sandwiches. I perhaps, at times, would accept sleepless nights over the sense of loneliness when everyone had gone away. None of these matters are anything to sneeze at, but, if we are honest, we might admit that none is the end of the world.

The thing is that I don’t mind a bit of frugality. There’s a real sense of strength that comes from knowing that you can make it through life alone. I can be in a relationship these days because I know that I can make it on my own if I want to make it on my own. My girlfriend is great, but I have to stand on my own two feet and one of the ways I do that is by living within my means, cutting back on expenses, and enjoying the blessings while not over extending myself to match her generosity. She may be able to afford to do some things I can’t and even be able to show love in ways I don’t know how to match at this point in my life, but I can bring other things to the potluck of our relationship. I bring who I am and somehow that’s enough.

If you can’t tell, I am grateful for my frugal fare. People do sometimes bless me with gifts of food for which I am also grateful, but I like being simple at times, even when it is difficult. Perhaps I am especially grateful when it is difficult. Being frugal can build character and character is something that you cannot necessarily put a price tag upon.

I love it when people are helpful, but if they are offering me a stone instead of bread, that’s not the solution to my problems that I require. My needs are only truly understandable when you walk a mile in my shoes, which isn’t something someone can do out there. These shoes rest right here and unless you’re here to see these worn treads and feel the frayed lining where my heels brush… To be blunt while hopefully not causing offense, you don’t actually know what you’re talking about, so please ask first and understand that sometimes no means no.

On Weirdness of Body

/ Robert D / Leave a comment

I have been working most of the day with the exception of a personal errand this evening. I have been battling technology for most of the day and annoyed at least one person by putting the wrong link in an email. It has been a very stressful day and there’s still absolutely no progress on the car. Over seven days after the accident there still isn’t even an appointment for the insurance company to look at the car.

To be entirely honest, I am a bit frazzled tonight as I look over what rests on my docket for tomorrow. Bible study, worship, and leadership are the start of the day. The afternoon and evening are marked with taking care of personal needs and then volunteer service in my recovery program. When the sun has long set tomorrow night, it will be with a whole week of needs obligations ahead of me even without the car dramatics.

It is going to be a week, but I am honestly stuck in the last week. A friend sent me copies of pictures of my children and they appear happy and well fed. Honestly, I am so grateful they appear happy and wellfed. It makes me really happy even as I am struggling with the opposite situation. I was lightly lectured by a doctor this week because I haven’t had enough protein. It is significant enough that it showed up in my bloodwork as a form of malnutrition. Yeah, to a certain extent, my body composition is changing partially because of nutritional deprivation.

The day after I had that conversation with my doctor I was looking in the mirror while I was putting another set of holes into my belt. The muscles looked good, but the skin drooped strangely. The shoulders looked great and my jawline was sharp, but the skin around my belly was loose. Although others don’t often see it, I can see it every single day. I’ve long since left behind the moments of absolute and sheer joy to a slight grimace when I look in the mirror.

Still, what can a person do? Do I argue for less child support and risk my children going without? Do I advocate for myself knowing that the kids may need a father who hasn’t gone without protein for so long that it is having an effect on his health? Do I even speak honestly about it with people like my father or my brother who might see this as one more area where I fall short of the ideal by which I was raised to live? Do I even let my elder children know what’s going on if they knew all those shiny toes under the tree and those brimming pots full of food that they share with their mother are systemically related to my weight loss?

Do I even remain silent because it is embarrassing to the church? I can tell you that they’re more than generous, but when 36% automatically goes to child support and your partner won’t pay her portion of the insurance, things are tight. It isn’t the church’s job to be more generous than that kind of burden. It isn’t the church’s job to bail me out after I married the woman I married. Do I remain silent because it is bad enough their minister wears baggy clothes and won’t go to Thursday breakfast at the falls because the cost is too great? What do I do when they read this which will lead to another round of “Why won’t you go to the food pantry we hold in our church?”

Do I remain silent because I do have a role to play in all of this? I know one person in particular loves to say I don’t own my part in things. Yeah, I exercise a lot. Yeah, I weightlift. Why? I do enjoy the way it makes me look but I also realized a while back that all of that weight loss was coming at the expense of musculature. Yes, I hit a use it or lose it point a few months back and that’s why I am working so hard to build muscle. All of that means I need more calories, but the honest truth is that I buy meat maybe once or twice a month because that’s what I can afford. Yay for tofu and beans… I don’t get extra visits in part because I don’t feel safe in Springville but also because some of the visits come with the choice of paying for gasoline or paying for groceries. Still, I could just let the muscles go, exercise less, and need fewer calories. I could choose to sit home more, read more, and just let my body shrink down to a level I can afford to feed with rice, beans, and whatever greens I manage. I guess I could do that and I guess I’m guilty for not making that choice.

There’s all sorts of stuff I could do and there are reasons to remain silent, but should I stay silent? A lot of harm is often done by good people staying silent. Am I the only person going through difficult times? Do their stories matter less because they do not have the same privileges as me? Is it, in fact, a disservice to remain silent when there are so many people struggling without a voice? My words echo a lot of people’s experiences and I know many of them have no space, place, or voice to say what’s happening in their lives. Some of those people are good people who just cannot share. I would know because I come across those people often in recovery, in ministry, and as a person who actually enjoys and even loves the people at the edges of society. Do I do a disservice to them if I remain silent?

In the scriptures, the stories of God’s provision are told time and time again. There are stories where God shows up in the midst of the wilderness to provide for the families and prophets in need. A widow is given enough to survive by Elijah in the midst of 1 Kings 17. She has enough, but what of the people who live under the rule of a wicked ruler? Were all of those people wicked? Did they all deserve to go without? Probably not, but one of the sad realities of scripture is that the world presented reflects reality instead of the utopia we all desire.

Time and time again, through the scriptures the faithful people and even the innocent bystanders go through life without the very things they need. Do you know those videos of people overseas struggling? Those “for a dollar a day” videos? For generations, even the lands of the faithful looked like those videos when famine and drought came through the land. Sometimes deprivation is simply how life works even within the scriptures. As our society continues to shift, it sadly seems as if the sad reality of struggle told in the scriptures is increasingly apparent in our days as automation cuts the bottom rung of employment out here in the name of profits.

Even as we acknowledge that truth, do we lose hope in the midst of deprivation? We could, but I have always leaned into stories and words of hope from books like Habakkuk. There’s no grain in the field and the barns are empty, but we praise the Lord anyway. Things don’t look great and the choices are both dire and sad, but we praise the Lord anyway. Faith isn’t faith if one knows everything will work out perfectly. It is faith precisely because we do not see the way forward. We have to trust it is there.

So I believe. Lord, help me in my unbelief.

“Planted” and Aquaponic Fish

/ Robert D / Leave a comment

The #RethinkChurch Lenten Photo-A-Day prompt for today is the word “planted.” Of course, I couldn’t just be normal, so I decided to use one of my favorite pictures from my “aquaponic” fish tank. Who wouldn’t want to be planted in water?

Nibbling fish

To be entirely honest, the picture is quite fitting for the theme of the week. We have been pondering “hunger” and “fullness” and these fish are almost the living embodiment of the idea taught by Jesus.

When I bought these fish, I bought them with a pair of clown loaches in order to help take care of some very expansive plant growth in the tank. I had bought some plants from my favorite fish place and had been warned that they tended to grow quickly. Between the plants and the snails that came with them, it was not long before the aquarium was very green and very infested by snails.

Woe to you fish who are full, for you shall be empty. They devastated every single plant in the aquarium in a matter of weeks. When they arrived I couldn’t see the back of the tank. After they were happily established, every single plant in the aquarium was doomed. The snails had just as rough a time. Indeed, the fish made short work of the basil roots shown in this picture. They were so full for a while, but then they were more than empty.

The plants actually have grown to the point that their roots are managing to reach into the tank now. Their roots grow quickly and there’s enough space within the plastic enclosure, planting medium, and clay pellets that their roots are thriving despite the nibbling. I am almost certain that all of the plants would be rootless if I had let the fish “be full” of plants, but blessed are these fish for their “emptiness” means that there will be enough for tomorrow’s nibbling.

“Living” and Hunger

/ Robert D / Leave a comment

The #RethinkChurch Lenten Photo-A-Day prompt for today is “Living.” Throughout this week we have been looking at hunger and fullness in our devotional, but I wanted to take a moment to note that there is more than one type of hunger.

Last fall I spent a lot of time walking and praying. One place I went for an extended walk was in Chenango Valley State Park. If you spend enough time in Chenango Valley State Park, you will realize that there are definitely places where a lot of people travel and places where few people travel.

During my first few visits to the park, I spent a lot of time walking around the large loop which surrounds one of the lakes and crosses over what could be called the isthmus between the two lakes. As I continued to visit over the years, I found various walking paths down near the edges of the lakes, but there was one path that always tempted me. It just sort of went off into nowhere from behind a picnic shelter.

I wondered what might be back behind that picnic shelter visit after visit until I was so hungry to know what was back there that my dog and I went out exploring. We hiked, hiked, and hiked some more. Eventually we came out of one section of the path and found ourselves at the top of a hill looking over Chenango Valley. The view was breathtaking and there was this cute bench setup for people to rest and look down upon the valley.

An overlook in Chenango Valley State Park

This photo has little to nothing to do with actual hunger, but it does have a lot to say about how hunger for knowledge, love, or even food can affect the way we think. When we find ourselves hungry, our priorities can change, our limits can be stretched, and occasionally we realize that God is out there beyond the realm of where we are full and “happy” with the things around us.

I invite you to ask yourself if there is a place in your life where you are hungry. Is the hunger meant to teach you something or stretch you beyond the places where you are safe and comfortable?

“Present” and hunger

/ Robert D / Leave a comment

The #RethinkChurch Lenten Photo-A-Day prompt for today is “Present.” As it is a Monday, our devotional points us again into Luke 6:-17-26. This week we are focusing on the contrasting concepts of hunger and fullness.

While it can be difficult to come up with a connection between the Lenten Photo-A-Day and the theme of the day, today was an easy selection for me. I know of the perfect present that has taught me about a hunger that goes deeper than just a craving for food.

I spent last Thanksgiving with my brother and his wife. For the first time in years, I did not spend Thanksgiving with my wife and it was the first time in 13 years that my eldest was not around complicating things. It was a heartbreaking experience that I know many others have experienced over the years.

After Thanksgiving, I had an opportunity to visit with my kids. In a red folder, I received a picture from my youngest. She had colored a picture of a turkey and wanted me to have it.

I practically ran to hang it up in my bathroom. When my kids are around, they see the turkey hanging there and I remind my youngest that I love it. I truthfully tell her that I say a prayer for her each time I notice it, whether it is the middle of the night or first thing in the morning.

Once upon a time, we had so many pictures come home from school that it was hard to choose. When my eldest was in second grade and my middle child was in kindergarten, our refrigerator was practically a battlefield when we had to decide what picture would go where. My refrigerator was “full” of pictures.

Now, the pictures are few and far between. I am hungry for pictures from my kids. I never realized how lucky I was to have all of those pictures filling my fridge. Like almost all parents, but not in the same way as most, I went from a full nest to an empty nest overnight. I long for the days when the kids are here in our house. I long for those moments when I could hug my kids after school and celebrate their pictures.

In the devotional, the very heart of what I am trying to get across is found at the beginning of today’s reading: “One of the greatest challenges of using the beatitudes found in the Gospel of Luke is that they use slightly different language than those found within the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s gospel.” The hunger listed here is not qualified by a connection to righteousness like in the gospel of Matthew. As it says later today: “As we look at hunger throughout this week in Jesus’ teachings, we will notice that it relates to questions around wealth from the previous beatitude and to questions around sorrow and laughter in next week’s beatitude.”

I know that I hunger for something that is connected with both sorrow and an impoverished heart. As we go through the devotions this week, I hope everyone finds a place of connection. I also hope that they find safe spaces to express any sorrow that they feel while on this journey.

“Three Bowls” Cinquain

/ Robert D / Leave a comment

Holy Week is really intense for me. I have been working to have a sense of peace, but things are often a bit chaotic with last minute preparations.

Today I woke up early and decided to make some oatmeal. I texted upstairs to my wife who was waking up for the day and she said she’d like some oatmeal. Despite texting her on silent in order to keep our communication silent, our toddler heard the buzz. We broke the first rule: We woke the kid.

Empty bowls by steaming oatmeal.

I began to prepare oatmeal for my family. I split the oatmeal into our three bowls. We each had our own type. The toddler had dried fruit in hers, my wife’s was plain and ready to be doctored, and my oatmeal was mixed with some eggs and spices. As the bowls sat there, I thought about two things. I thought about Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

I also thought about where my wife and I received our bowls, which was at a local charity event called “Empty Bowls.” The event is connected with both Roberson Clayworks and United Health Services. The funds raised go to benefit the Food Bank of the Southern Tier. Every time I eat out of my bowl, I remember that there are folks in our community who don’t have food to eat.

I am fortunate to have food for my hungry belly. Others are not blessed in the same way today. I thought about these things and wrote this poem based on the three bears and hungry bellies.

Three bowls
Steam rises up
While empty belly growls.
Bear-like hunger to empty bowls
With thanks…

“Three Bowls” Cinquain by the Distracted Pastor on April 16, 2019

Hungry Kyoka

/ Robert D / 1 Comment 
"Dad, I am hungry!"
"Hi hungry! I am your dad!"
I laugh at her sigh.
I turn with my warmest smile
And look in an empty fridge.

“Hungry Kyoka” The Distracted Pastor, 2019

I wanted to share this kyoka this morning for a simple reason. A kyoka is a form of poetry in which the profane or mundane is placed into a poetic form. For some people “Dad jokes” are profanely terrible. For other folks family conversations in a kitchen are commonplace.

For me, what is profane is neither the bad humor nor the commonality of the situation. What is profane is that there are many families in this world and in our community that have little or nothing in their fridges. Humor is one response to tragedy. The tragedy of families which struggle to feed their families is a profanity in a country where people regularly propose billions of dollars for a wall while families starve.

There are people in our communities who do not have enough to eat without assistance. I have performed funerals for people who have died of complications from malnourishment. Not all of those situations were from a lack of access to food, but I can tell you sometimes having nothing in the fridge leads to mental distress, spiritual crisis, and physical challenges.

Here where I live in Broome County we are blessed to have access to both the Community Hunger Outreach Warehouse (CHOW) operated by the Broome County Council of Churches and to the Food Bank of the Southern Tier which extends out from Broome County to also cover Chemung, Schuyler, Steuben, Tioga, and Tompkins counties.

Homemade bread is a blessing which requires ingredients, cooking utensils, and an oven (or campfire if courageous/desperate). Some people do not have those things.

I wanted to invite you to become involved in hunger outreach in your local context. If you are one of the people who follow this blog because you love Christian contemplation, consider how many of the saints learned the value of contemplation through action. If you are a poetry person, consider how difficult it can be to create or enjoy beautiful poetry when you are distracted by a growling stomach. Hungry has inspired many wonderful pieces of art, but I am certain it was not enjoyable. Please consider volunteering time or resources to one of these wonderful missions or a similar mission near you.

Allow me a moment to say there are many commonalities among world religions. Almost all of them point to both the value of love and the reciprocal blessing of kindness. Call it karma, the promise of the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats, or by another phrase meaningful to you. It is good to show kindness to people in need.

Here are five ways to get started in helping fight hunger:

  • Pick a designated non-perishable item of the month that you use a lot of in your life. If you pick peanut butter, purchase an extra jar when it is on your grocery list. Donate it to a local food bank or food pantry.
  • Do not automatically say “No” if you live in an area where grocery stores might invite you to donate to a pantry. The Food Bank of the Southern Tier occasionally invites people to “Check out Hunger.” A similar program might be available near you.
  • If you go to church, offer to help make sure there is healthy food for times of fellowship like “Coffee Hour.” If you see a friend who looks like they might need an extra cookie, offer to get them one while you “Get a cup of coffee.” If your church is willing, find a family who might need a blessing and offer them the leftover goodies (with grace and an understanding if they say no).
  • Pay attention to your neighbors. If you know a family is going hungry, “Secret Santa” them by paying for a pizza or other food to be delivered from a local restaurant anonymously. Make sure you cover the driver’s tip so that the person is not embarrassed.
  • Call a Food Pantry, Food Bank, or Soup Kitchen. Ask what they need and volunteer what you can in time or in goods.