Place Matters

Place matters. Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin wrote in this morning's Huffington Post that when she was reading the first three chapters of Deuteronomy, she was struck by how much unnecessary detail there seemed to be about place.

As is often the case, I got hung up on the opening. I had pulled the Torah off the shelf, settled in for a good study, and got stuck on the very first verse:

'These are the words that Moses addressed to all Israel on the other side of the Jordan, in the wilderness, in the Aravah, near Suph, between Paran and Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth and Di-zahab...'

She suggests that it's not just the ramblings of a storyteller gone wild, but instead that there's something spiritually important about place. Think of it. Where were you when you heard the Twin Towers fell? When the Challenger exploded? Or, if you're older, when Kennedy was shot? We remember where we were when something rocked our world. Place matters.

But it's not just tragedies that are tied to place. Tell me about how you got engaged to your partner, and nine times out of ten, you'll start with, "Well, we were skiing at Copper Mountain, and I had the ring in my pocket..." or "It was at her dad's diner at Court and Main." 

We're in the middle of a move from Virginia to Minnesota. We get the comments about the weather, the shift from Southern hospitality to Northern, from chess pies to hot dish, and, did I mention that some people are obsessed with snow? But the question that people ask most is, "Have you found a place to live?" 

It's not the "no" that surprises me. It's the curious way my stomach twists when I say it. It's almost like, if I don't know where I am, it's hard to know who I am. There's something incarnational going on here. Something about being embodied. Something about being in and from a place.

I think the rabbi is right to wonder about the particularity of Moses' final address to his people on the other side of the Jordan, in the wilderness, in the Aravah, near Suph, one block off the corner of Cedar Avenue and 210th Street West. Some of the most important words we hear are spoken to us in the in-between places of wilderness and wandering, often a stone's throw from the Promised Land.

I'm noticing that the corn and bean fields smell like they did when I was a child in Illinois. The bigness of the sky reminds me of the way I could see storms from miles away in Texas. The rolling landscape is lush like the Shenandoah Valley. And the highway drivers have that comfortable big-city confidence and nerve. I'm getting accustomed to this place because there are bits of it that make me feel I've been here before.

It's a spiritual connection I sense, a joyful Walt Whitmanesque roiling of sweat and laughter, rootedness, prayer. I sense that something new is happening, and hard as it is to be in between, and lonely without my family here, it's as if a voice is calling from across the threshold, across the Jordan. And I can't quite make out what they are saying. But if I'm patient, if I listen...

What words, what Word, will I hear? Or you? Because it wouldn't surprise me if you're on the verge of Jordan, too, looking forward to feeling at home in a place, looking forward with a little anxiety in your stomach, but looking forward, listening carefully. Looking to the future with a tiny spark of wonder. Looking to the future in hope.

Blessings and Peace,
David

Bring Hope to the Table

My morning devotional time is usually brief. With a kid to get out the door to school, it fits between the alarm and the shower. Daily lectionary readings in my inbox keep me grounded in scripture. And inward/outward (an online ministry of Church of the Saviour in Washington, D. C.) challenges me with a thoughtful idea. But this morning, breakfast came first, and the surprise spiritual spark of the day was on a box of Kroger Corn Flakes.

A cereal box usually has some sort of marketing message for its target audience. Lucky Charms has cartoons. Cheerios talks cholesterol. Special K shows slim, attractive women touting weight loss. Odds are your breakfast cereal knows a little about you. You are what you eat, after all. But the advertisers know you also eat what you are.

My corn flakes this morning spoke to me (but not like Rice Krispies' "snap crackle pop"). The back of the box said something about hope.

Yes, it was written by someone who probably works in the corporate offices of a large food distribution company, and yes, it was probably approved by some mid-level executive whose job it is to protect the company's brand and drive profits. But the message was a good one. It was about Kroger's partnership with Feeding America. Among other things, it said:

"In the past five years, Kroger and you have helped provide 560 million meals to needy families in our communities."

It talked about their food rescue program, bringing perishable foods from the store shelves to local food banks. I thought of the fresh breads and baked goods, the sandwiches, salads and fruit, that we serve at Daily Bread to Lynchburg's food-insecure. When I see employees at our local store pulling the deli sandwiches off the shelf at the end of the day, I know who will eat them tomorrow.

It talked about in-store donations to stock food banks with dry goods. And I thought not only of the food donation boxes by the check-out line, but of the hundreds upon thousands of starter sacks of food we've packed at the Rivermont Area Food Pantry over the yearsFinally it said that to make an even bigger difference, customers should hold food drives in their communities and make donations themselves.

All this is well and good. I was impressed with Kroger's commitment to feed the hungry. When good and generous corporate citizens address the critical needs of the communities in which we live and they do business, it's a sign of hope. But something nagged at me after I spooned the last drop of milk from the bowl. Good as it was, something was missing.

The box talked about essential moral actions, which are relvant for any person of faith, any person of good will. It didn't say it in so many words, but as a Christian it wasn't a stretch to get from the Kroger message to the charge that not to feed the hungry would be like walking by on the other side, ignoring the man robbed on the Jericho road. It would be like letting a bleeding person bleed, or withholding CPR . It would be like denying an AIDS patient the lifesaving drugs that commute the death sentence of the disease. Jesus had clear words for those who have two coats when a neighbor has none.

Let those with ears to hear (even if it comes on a cereal box)...

Because there's more that has to be said. I supposae what niggled in my mind's ear was this. For those who have not only ears to hear but voices to speak, more is required. We have a further obligation. Feed the hungry, yes. Of course. But then take it to the next level. Speak up and speak out. Work to reform a system that allows hunger to persist.

No one who studies such things denies that we can produce enough food to feed the entire planet. We have the capacity. We have the technology. We even have the ability to distribute food wherever it is needed. What we don't have is the will, the sense of moral necessity to take care of our neighbor with more than a charitable donation. What we're lacking is a collective will to establish justice.

There is nothing just or equitable about anyone in this day and age dying of malnutrition, undernutrition, or starvation. God tells Micah the first thing required of God's people is to "do justice." So we shouldn't just talk about it it. Let's do it! We have the ability to grow, process, and distribute healthy food to every human being on the planet. What we lack are just economic and political systems and a collective moral sense of urgency. Sometimes we have the urgency, but we don't believe we can make a difference. What we then lack is hope.

Hope for the Christian isn't aimed at the improbable or unprovable but is aimed at God's vision of human flourishing. Our hope translates into concrete actions like sacking starter bags in the food pantry. But more: it means advocacy, education, and lobbying efforts to reform unjust distribution systems and transform hardened and cynical hearts. It means calling out bad corporate practices that deny life's necessities to those who can't afford them. It means being critical of any form of capitalism that is so completely laizzes faire that it elevates self-centered liberty above the other-regard of unconditional love. It means using democratic processes of the public church to persuade, to inspire, and to implement.

Do all this in faith and we "bring hope to the table," as my Corn Flakes copy writer suggests. But the hope of food for the hungry comes from a larger, even more inclusive table than any board room or editor's desk. Hope that will change the world comes from a table set with the memory of sacrificial love. Hope comes from a table where all are welcome and no one is denied. Hope comes from a table where justice and peace kiss, and they promise to spend the rest of their lives in partnership for the flourishing of all of God's children.

It takes courage to bring this sort of hope to the table, a hope that feeds the hungry, yes, but also works to eliminate the structural causes of hunger. It takes a willingness to imagine a better world, more just, more loving, more reflective of shalom.

So, what are you having for breakfast?

Blessings and Peace,
David