Lenten Reflection 3/12

 

A judge decided yesterday that Mayor Bloomberg's proposed law to outlaw sugary drinks over 16 ounces was both "arbitrary and capricious."  I don't think anyone can question that the mayor proposed this law for the good of the public health, but it did seem a bit haphazard.  The rule applied differently to restaurants than to stores, to clear drinks than to milk based drinks.  Alcoholic drinks were exempted.  And although restaurants could not sell coffee drinks over 16 ounces that were sweetened, they could sell them unsweetened and have plenty of sugar available for customers to sweeten the drinks themselves.

Mayor Bloomberg has been well known for his efforts to promote the public health.  He has enacted indoor smoking bans and required restaurants to post calorie counts.  This latest effort was meant to be a revolutionary approach to obesity, which has been proven to be caused by over-consumption of sugary drinks, especially in kids.   But the soft drink industry didn't like this proposal one bit, and mounted a huge campaign.  There are signs and ads all over the city telling New Yorkers that the mayor is trying to restrict their freedom.  (and of course, making something a question of personal freedom is always a good way to get Americans up out of our recliners).   They also filed a court case against the law, and the decision yesterday clearly came as a surprise to the mayor, as well as to the many restaurants that had already adjusted their menus and retrained their staff to deal with the new regulations that were set to take effect today.  During their campaign against the mayor's proposal, soft drink industry used phrases like, "We don't need the government trying to invade our personal choices on matters of health."

Well, it seems to me that one of the most important roles of the government is to protect the public health.  We certainly wouldn't want to get the majority of our health information from corporations who can afford lots of attractive advertising and who produce foods that alter our appetites and make us hungry for more.  The 'government' is not trying to 'invade' when leaders or governmental health agencies advocate for our health.  We all know soda is unhealthy.  It rots your teeth.  It makes you fat.  It throws off your sugar levels which can lead to diabetes.  It's full of colorings and high fructose corn syrup.  Everyone knows it's unhealthy, but we drink it anyway.   Just like we eat stuff that's bad for us, smoke, sit on the couch too much and make all kinds of risky and harmful personal life choices.  As Paul so correctly puts it, "I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway.  My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions.  Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time."

I admire Mayor Bloomberg's intentions.  He runs a really major city and he wants to promote good health among its citizens and be a model of healthy choices for other cities.   Got to say, he's got guts to try this and to stick with it - especially when the personal freedom advocates got their hackles all up, depicting him with a Hitler mustache and all, as such people are prone to do.  He was boldly advocating for the common good.  Leaders need to have the courage to do that a lot more often.  No matter how much they say they care about personal freedom, the beverage industry really just wants to make profits.  "Sin simply does what sin is so famous for doing: using the good  as a cover to tempt me to do what would finally destroy me."  Personal freedom is a good cover for all kinds of sin.

I know as well as anyone that a law outlawing large sugary drinks will not do away with the over-consumption of soda.  Where there's a rule, there's a way to get around it, and when something is banned, it becomes forbidden fruit, as Paul wrote yesterday.  But I think there is something good about putting public restrictions on things everyone knows is bad.  After all, God put the ten commandments in stone, even though God knew we'd break them in a million ways.  I think what is lacking is a balance in our nation between profits, sound regulation and plain old common sense. 


Today's readings: Jer. 17:19-27; Rom. 7:13-25; John 6:16-27
Elsa is praying the daily readings and praying the news and blogging about it on the weekdays of Lent.

She is reading The Message translation this year.


Note: Elsa is headed off for her yearly Lenten retreat at SSJE.  She will return to this blog on Monday, March 18.

Lenten Reflection 3/11

So last night my family completed our week long "Solidarity Fast".  We limited our food budget for the week to only $4 per person per day, which is what most people on food stamps have to work with.  So last Sunday night we headed off to the grocery store with $112 in hand to buy all our food for the week.  We cleared out the top shelf of the fridge and one corner of the counter top and put all the food we got in those two places.  The rest of the fridge and the pantry were off limits for the week.

I've got to say that we ended up eating plenty of food.  It just was very different food than we normally eat.  I can't say any of us felt hungry, but we didn't always feel satisfied - especially on an emotional level.  As the week went on, we worried a bit that maybe our supplies would run out but this ended up being a groundless fear.  There were plenty of  apples, potatoes and peanut butter - therefore, plenty of calories -  left after Sunday supper.


I read an article last week that advocated that Lenten disciplines should be quite challenging in order to really stir and wake you up.  This fast was challenging.  It was challenging to sit down last Sunday and plan out a list of meals we thought might fit our budget.  It was challenging to shop and match our plans with the reality of how much money we actually had.  It was challenging to be creative with our few ingredients and combine them into unified meals.  It was challenging not having our usual favorite foods and food treats around.  It was most challenging to really feel just a taste of what those who rely on food stamps feel all the time - and to realize that while we experienced it as a challenging fast for a week, for millions of Americans it's not a fast - it's just the day to day reality.

I used to run a restaurant.  I'm good at making a meal out of next to nothing.  I know how to cook wholesome beans and grains from scratch.  As a former holistic health practitioner, I know a lot about nutrition.  I was well equipped to make the most out of this week.  Though the prices were a bit higher, we opted to do all our shopping at the grocery store that is 1/4 mile from our house even though there are cheaper grocery stores further down the road, because having to get supplies locally is part of many people's reality.  We made it work.  But all week I kept thinking about those people who have only some little convenience store nearby where the food is more expensive and less nutritious.  I thought about the people who are working 2 or 3 jobs and don't have time to cook or don't know how to cook or just don't know all that much about nutrition.  What on earth do they end up eating for only $4 a day? 

It was interesting to note that I found myself far more interested in free food opportunities last week than I usually am.  For example, someone brought clementines to my al-anon meeting and I ate 5 of them.  (fresh fruit!) At our vestry retreat, where we were supposed to bring our own lunch, I brought some rice and frozen cauliflower with me (with some of our precious cheese on it - the most costly item we had purchased ) but I was really happy that someone had brought veggie and fruit trays, as well as my favorite kind of potato chips.  There was a potluck lunch at church on Sunday as our unified meals were running out.  I realized how finding free food opportunities is an important part of many people's calculus in making it through the week.

Last night at supper, we talked together about how the experience had been.  The boys claimed that it was really no different than usual except that they got to eat more of what they like - tons of spaghetti.  They got to have the "treat" of having ramen noodles for after school snacks.  They got to have school lunches all week because we figured people on food stamps can get free lunches for their kids.  No healthy bagged lunches, no stupid green smoothies in the morning, no half the plate covered with steamed vegetables in the evening.  From their perspective, they had plenty of food, which is as usual. 

But since they were included in the week's menu planning and shopping they remained well aware of the tally we were keeping on the counter as we used up our last dollars as the week drew to a close.  The boys were the ones most often asking whether I thought we might run out of food.  They did recognize that something was different and it had something to do with feeling confident in your food supply.  They may have said they'd like to eat this way every week, but they missed their meat.  And they missed having pizza at choir rehearsal because we didn't have the $5 per boy to chip in.  We had no desserts in the house.  The food was filling but it was boring, and I'm sure week after week even these pasta hounds would get sick of so much  plain spaghetti with sauce. 

Neither my husband nor I had what we wanted to eat.  As a meat and potato man, Steve didn't get what he most enjoys, nor did he get the portion sizes he usually eats.  He lost weight.  As a gluten free vegetarian, I got plenty of foods I enjoy - split pea soup, bean chili, brown rice, peanut butter.  But this is much heavier fare than I'm used to eating three times a day.  No salads, no healthy smoothies for breakfast, no fresh veggies at all - only frozen, and only apples and a few bananas for fruit (usually slathered in peanut butter!)  I gained weight even though I couldn't afford any gluten free bread or pasta alternatives. 

I think I can speak for both of us when I say we felt our gratitude deepen for our food.  Yes, our calorie levels were definitely affected by this fast, but we were affected most of all by the disruptions we noticed in our emotional and mental attachments to food.  We recognized with stark clarity that we normally simply feel entitled to eat whatever we want whenever we want it.  I normally eat for pleasure, nutrition and taste, and I shop accordingly.  Last week, nutrition took the clear top billing and I had to consider first which items contained the most nutrition per dollar.  Taste came only second and pleasure was hardly an issue.  I made simple, nutritious food.  And we ate when we were hungry - not whenever we felt like enjoying a little something.  And during the fast we felt - literally in the gut - the sad and disturbing fact that thousands of people, even within a small radius of our own home, don't have access to such entitlement. 

When Jesus is in our midst, there is enough food for everyone with plenty left over.  Food is a gift from God and as Jesus' disciples, we are called to feed those who are hungry.  I go back to eating as I usually do today, while people just down the road - or even just around the corner - are eating a bowl of rice or instant oatmeal just to fill their bellies or going to a soup kitchen tonight to eat pasta and day old pastries.  Like the Israelites Jeremiah was warning about the wrath to come - when we make our own bellies into Gods, we're not doing what God is calling us to do.


Today's readings: Jer. 16:10-21; Rom. 7:1-12; John 6:1-15
Elsa is praying the daily readings and praying the news and blogging about it on the weekdays of Lent.
She is reading The Message translation this year.





 

Lenten Reflection 3/8

 

This morning, as I do on Friday mornings, I read the local paper.  This is the only paper I subscribe to - I get most of my news from NPR and online sources.  But I like to keep up with what's going on in my town.  (and I like to have a weekly crossword puzzle to do on my day off...)  Our paper has lots of calendar events, human interest stories, obituaries, classifieds and other local ads and a few local news items that help keep me in the know.  But what the paper is most full of is arguments between town leaders on various issues that are waged as battles through letters to the editor.  The bulk of political news about our town is conveyed in this way.  One week a politician declares he's right about something.  The next week an opponent blows holes in his argument and insults him.  The next week, the politician fires back, questioning the opponent's integrity.  There is no shortage of strong opinions in Trumbull, it seems, on topics ranging from from campaign signs to political endorsements to the budget.  Lately, the hot topic is the management, or in some people's opinion, the mismanagement of a senior housing development here in town.

I don't know.  After living here over three and a half years now, I still really have very little understanding of what's really going on politically here in Trumbull.  I've gotten to know a number of town leaders personally, and find them all likable.  However, the way they work (or don't work) together and how decisions are made here is still a great mystery to me.  I think that like in many small towns, you really need to be around for a long time before you understand how things actually get done.  

While as a relative newcomer, I find myself wondering how to figure out what's really going on, I'm beginning to realize that people's opinions and arguments are the big news around here.  There are lots of people who've lived here all their lives, and they care who says what.  People care who and what their trusted friends endorse.  People take sides because of personal friendships.  Small towns like Trumbull tend to put personalities before the issues.  I see this played out in the paper every single week.

What really happened  at that senior housing development that has caused months of public argument?  I'm still not really sure and I read this paper cover to cover each week.  What I do know is that some people felt insulted, hurt and offended by how something was handled during the hurricane last fall.  People are still mad at each other about this and want everyone to know who made the most outrageous insinuations and who insulted whose mother.  Really.  It goes on and on.  I've often commented while reading this paper that if I were considering Trumbull as a place to live and I got the paper to check the place out, I'd be pretty turned off by the many mean spirited letters sent to the paper by our various leaders and prominent citizens week after week.

Paul tells the Romans in chapter 6 that being a slave to self is sin.  Freedom only comes when you come out of yourself and listen to God, to the world, to others.  And Jesus says "If I turned the spotlight on myself, it wouldn't amount to anything."  There's something bigger in this world than our own opinions, our own view of things, our own arguments, our own reputations.  Many of the combative letters to the editor in our local paper are like self-focused spotlights and they really don't amount to anything.  They don't give readers any clarity at all about the real issues facing our town.  They haven't informed residents of the direction we need to move together to grow and thrive and care for our citizens.  And they certainly don't inspire anyone to want to get involved in leadership on a town level.

I would urge everyone in a leadership position in our town, whether they have been elected, appointed - or just known by name or reputation - to begin thinking more about how they can publicly come together around the common good of our community rather than just trying to top each other in appearing to be either the most righteous or most martyred in their very public letters to the editor.


Today's readings:  Jer. 11:1-8,14-20; Rom. 6:1-11; John 8:33-47
Saturday's readings: Jer. 13:1-11; Rom. 6:12-23; John 8:47-59
Sunday's readings: Jer. 14:1-9,17-22; Gal. 4:21-5:1; Mark 8:11-21
Elsa is praying the daily readings and praying the news and blogging about it on the weekdays of Lent.
She is reading The Message translation this year.

Lenten Reflection 3/7

A lot of aggressive rhetoric is used in international politics.  This rhetoric is kind of like the insults and threats that get thrown around on a playground before the fists start flying. 

For example, the United Nations Security Council is currently considering enforcing further sanctions against North Korea over its nuclear program, and a few hours before the council was scheduled to meet, North Korea proclaimed such sanctions "an act of war," and declared its right to commit preemptive strikes against both South Korea and the U.S.  Apparently North Korea has often said before that it has the right to use preemptive military strikes against the U.S., which it claims is preparing to start a war on the Korean Peninsula.  But today, they increased the hostility of their rhetoric by saying that they have a right to  make preemptive nuclear strikes, and that they would turn Washington and Seoul into "a sea in flames" with "lighter and smaller nukes."  The New York Times quotes a spokesman from the North Korean Foreign Ministry as saying, "Now that the U.S. is set to light a fuse for a nuclear war, the revolutionary armed forces of the DPRK will exercise the right to a preemptive nuclear attack to destroy the strongholds of the aggressors and to defend the supreme interests of the country."

The article goes to say that while few analysts believe that North Korea will launch a nuclear attack on the U.S., believing it would be a suicidal move for the regime, many are concerned that this increase in rhetoric indicates that "North Korea might attempt an armed skirmish to test the military resolve of Park Geun-hye, South Korea's first female president, who took office less than two weeks ago."  The article suggests that Kim Jon-un, North Korea's new leader, is eager to build his reputation as leader of a strong and aggressive 'military first' country.  South Korea, too, has been more blunt in its own rhetoric back to North Korea.  Tensions there are building.  Will the fists start flying soon?

In Paul's letter to the Romans, I was immediately struck today by the sentence that said, "Sin didn't, and doesn't, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace."  You don't often see the word aggressive used to describe forgiveness.

There seems to be no limit on how aggressive we human beings can be toward one another, so I like the idea of God's grace and forgiveness somehow having even more power than any aggression I can produce or imagine.  I know what an aggressive threat looks like. North Korea made one just today.  What would aggressive forgiveness look like?  

"All sin can do is threaten us with death, and that's the end of it," Paul says.  "When it's sin versus grace, grace wins hands down."  Grace always wins.  So whatever aggressive forgiveness looks like, it must be far more powerful than aggressive political rhetoric or playground bullying or domestic violence or gun violence or war - or even nuclear weapons.  More powerful than any of the most aggressive things I can think of.  Praying the news can be very upsetting.  You take in a lot of the world's aggression.  So it's very good and comforting news to me today that there is a power greater than any earthly power I could fear.  I think I'll find some rest in that power today.


Today's readings:  Jer. 10:11-24; Rom. 5:12-21; John 8:21-32
Elsa is praying the daily readings and praying the news and blogging about it on the weekdays of Lent.
She is reading The Message translation this year. 

Lenten Reflection 3/6

 

So I was down at Starbucks today, and there were some guys at the next table.  And one of them makes a comment about Hugo Chavez, and another one - well - just goes off.  "THAT guy - don't even mention THAT guy.  What a loser - I'm glad he's dead!"  His friend asked him, "Hey, what did he ever do to you?"  The guy shoots back, louder this time,  "Didn't you hear him at the U.N.?  What right do they have to let him talk about the US the way he did at the U.N.?  Where does he get off?  He should  be dead.  And they never should have let him speak."  Another guy said to him, "I don't like the guy either, but he's a person.  His mother loved him probably, right?  And besides, he was legally elected by his own people in that country."  That did it.  The other guy said, (even louder this time)  "Elected?  ELECTED?  It's a whole different world down there.  They don't have elections the same as we do.  It's all rigged!  He was a crook.  He was a deadbeat.  He was a loser.  I'm thrilled that he's dead."

Whew!  I didn't expect to get a dose of that kind of rage today.  But there it was.  The anger that sometimes simmers in the dark.  The public image of Hugo Chavez obviously struck a deep nerve with this guy - offended him in some deep and clearly personal way.  I don't think any of us admired Chavez's blunt criticisms of our country and his insults toward our leaders, but this guy took it very, very personally.  Chavez clearly represented something very painful for this man.  His friends realized it was a good idea to change the subject.  One of them said, "Let's just not talk about this now," and turning to another one of the guys, he asked, "So how's your friend Joe?"  And the conversation turned.

Jesus said to the Pharisees, "You're looking right at me and you don't see me.  How do you expect to see the Father?  If you knew me, you would at the same time know the Father."

When I was a kid, I used to think that what Jesus was saying here was that he's like the one special envoy sent to earth by God  - and that in order to see God, you had to look at the Jesus of history - the Jesus of the Bible.  Well, although I still would say that Jesus is the image of the invisible God, my view has become more complicated.  What I hear in Jesus' words today to the Pharisees is that whenever we look at any person and don't see him or her - but look at them like an object or a possession or a symbol or anything other than the whole, full, beloved child of God that they are - that's  when we are not seeing God.  We don't see God when we don't see what God has created.  And we are all created in the image of God.  And all of us together are the body of Christ.  We learn who God is through the stories of Jesus in the bible, yes, but also through the body of Christ that is all around us today.  Through our interactions with one another.

So this man's rant about Hugo Chavez, a person he never met, felt to me like Chavez, to him, was some kind of object or symbol - a target that represented everything he hates.  And he wished him dead.  He strongly wished him dead.  And he would spit on his coffin if he could.  I'm sure if I had turned and suggested to him that he could perhaps see something new about God if he were to look more compassionately at Hugo Chavez, he would turn and look at me like I had three heads - or maybe even punch me in the mouth.

The thing is, though, there are alot of people in this world I have my issues with, too.  Those people in Kansas that picket funerals with "God Hates Fags" signs.  Clergy people who do unethical or hurtful things.  People I don't agree with about theology in my own church.  Hey - I even have issues with my husband and kids when they leave a mess in the bathroom.  I guess there's a continuum of issues.  I guess you could put Hitler on one end, and it lines up from there all the way to my own family members.  But we're all sinners and tax collectors to some degree because we're all broken and fallen people. And we're also all children of God.

Nonetheless, my faith tells me that sometimes I learn the most about God by being open to the "other" in my life - the very person that brings up the most stuff inside me.  The things that I hide away in the dark - those things that are hateful and prejudiced and wounded and sore - are brought into the light when I really see someone I consider "other."  Jesus tells us that there is nothing that is hidden that will not be exposed.  And, he says, "No one who follows me stumbles around in the darkness.  I provide plenty of light to live in."  We are called to live in that light - not in our darkness.

If I look right at someone - even someone I don't know personally - and all I can see is my own hate, well, I'm not seeing them. And if I can't see them, how can I expect to see God?
   If I strive to know the other as a child of God,
      if I strive to know myself as a child of God,
         if I strive to know Jesus as the child of God,
            I will at the same time be striving to know God.


Today's readings:  Jer. 8:18-9:6; Rom. 5:1-11; John 8:12-20
Elsa is praying the daily readings and praying the news and blogging about it on the weekdays of Lent.
She is reading The Message translation this year.