An Algonquin Neighbor's Reflections on the Solidarity Food Challenge

I am writing down some thoughts about the last week that I hope will be cathartic for me. I use to journal daily and at the time it was very therapeutic, but I haven’t done so in 6 years or so. This week’s challenge was the most spiritual thing I have done in years.

When I first started this exercise, I thought it would re-open a compassionate side of me that has been closed for a while. I knew it was closed and could see that I felt less compassion at different levels for some time, but I didn’t know why and didn’t know what to do to reawaken compassion. More pointedly, I didn’t know if I even wanted to.

I really thought going into this that I would be hungry a majority of the day. In reality I wasn’t hungry very often and when I was I was close to mealtime or close to bedtime. In that sense it was much easier than other fasts I have attempted. Those who know me know that I like simplicity, I don’t like cooking and that food preferences don’t often occupy my thoughts. What does occupy my thoughts is good nutrition, for me and my children. I was very concerned about Lydia getting enough nutrition to perform well and safely on the track team and with her riding lessons. I wondered if the children who grow up in impoverished areas are aware of what good nutrition is. If their mothers think about vitamins and minerals or if they are only consumed with worry about getting water and any food.

On Tuesday I forgot my lunch at work. I had a hard time concentrating on teaching my student and had word finding problems. But I also knew that at home within a few hours I could have a piece of tortilla to stave off hunger until dinner. I wondered what the woman in Africa does when she skips a meal. Can she keep working? Does she have an option to snack? I know I’ll never fully appreciate their challenges because I do have resources. I am different.

By Thursday, my workouts were getting lame. I was supposed to run a 30 min interval run. I did intervals, but they were walk run instead of run sprint intervals. I thought about the woman who was walking 10 miles barefoot to get water that morning. Did she have less energy than I? After her 20 mile round trip walk, did she have sore muscles from carrying the water on her head? How were her post work out recovery meals?

This week at work, we had 3 days in a row of additional food, from meetings, venders and celebrations. I did not participate in any of it. I decided that I should talk to my co-workers about what I was doing so they understood why I was passing on the food. It helped me stay the course knowing that others were watching me. I had many conversations about world poverty, what our responsibilities are and are not, what others can do to help, what we have tried in the past to do, how we have been burned trying to help others, etc., etc. A whiff of old passion stirred in me. I felt alive talking about poverty, compassion and interventions. I had everyone’s attention because I was the one limiting my consumption. Most of what I heard bothered me because it revolved around judgmentalism upon those who are “rich”. People think of themselves as exempt because someone else has more resources than them. But it’s all perspective. We have more than someone else, Others have more than us. I tried to make the point that all we can do is to change ourselves to become more generous, more aware, more compassionate. That it’s all about grace, not judgment. I think it was in vain.

After the week was over, I reflected on why I have been out of the “missionary” loop for so long. What has changed me from a charged up, optimistic, Jesus has the power to change you type of person to a cynical, skeptical and less reliant upon Jesus type person? I don’t have the answers yet, but my heart is still searching. I am once again hopeful that I will one day be the person that I wanted to be before... Before life taught me lessons of cynicism and complacency.

Lord hear our prayer,

Michele