The Joy of Serving Up a Meal... and Then Not Eating It - A Cup of Rice for India Floods Appeal: Day Three

It's day three of my attempt to live on the diet of some of the world's poorest people and I am very, very hungry.  On the plus side, people have now donated almost £180 to go towards Christian Aid's India Floods Appeal.

http://www.justgiving.com/tomsharp

It is just a short post today... as I've been in the kitchen yet again.

Sunday is kept as a feast at the friary, and by feast I mean FEAST!

For Lunch, Kerri and I turned out

• Roast Beef (from our own cow) with Herb Sausage Dressing
• New potatoes (grown in our garden)
• Carrots and beetroot roasted with Garlic and Rosemary
• Cabbage cooked with paprika in a Floridian recipe (Kerri is Floridian...ish)
• A veggy mushroom bake
• A 'Roly-Poly-Dick' - an amalgamation of Roly Poly Pudding and Spotted Dick with lots of sultanas, lemon peel and raspberry jam
• Custard

And dinner was a light option:

• Tomato and Basil Soup (with our own Basil and homemade yoghurt)
• Vegetable Bake with cheesy herb breadcrumb topping (lots of leftovers)
• Potato Salad (more leftovers)
• Green Salad
• Cheese
• A butterscotch tart that was meant for afternoon tea but took an eternity to set

I suppose that's a rather odd way to start a post relating to an emergency appeal, but as I cooked and helped cook all this fabulous food, watched 50-odd people eat it and washed up the dishes, a really funny thing happened.

I realised I was enjoying being in the kitchen a lot more than when I was trying to enjoy the food I had painstakingly produced as well.  I was actually getting joy from serving others the food in a way I didn't usually.

And then another thing happened.  I realised that I felt exactly the same in myself (bent over the sink, elbow deep in grease and suds) as I was when I had had a full meal.

Perhaps, then, maybe it wasn't having a massive Sunday lunch that made me so happy every week?  Evidently there was something else around that was the source of my joy.

I suppose this follows on from my last post about consuming only what we need.  But for Franciscans, consuming only what we need isn't meant to make us miserable.  It is meant to set us free from the worry that we might not have enough. We are free to find what truly makes us happy.

So the post today is a little more self-centred, in a way.  Living off what we need isn't actually only about everyone else's good.  It is about ours as well.

Lord,
You asked the people you met 
to give up everything to follow you.
You wanted them to have a happiness that 'stuff' couldn't give.
Help me to give up my desire for 'MORE',
And help me to discover the joy in what I have.
 

A Cup of Rice for India Floods Appeal: Day Two - Consider the Birds

I'm two days into my challenge to live of the diet of some of the world's poorest people.  And wonderful people have donated £92 thus far on http://www.justgiving.com/tomsharp to go towards Christian Aid's India Floods Appeal.

I've been in the office today folding some leaflets... and actually worrying a lot.  I'm beginning to get that light-headed, slightly woozy, feeling, that means that everything is just a little bit of an effort.  And I was beginning to think that I might have signed up for a really silly thing... Would a cup of rice and a bowl of meusli really be enough to sustain me?

And then I walked out of our community choir practice and saw this:

The baby swallows from the eaves of the sacrament chapel have flown the nest!  They're still being fed by their mother, but not quite so comfortably as they were.

And that famous saying of Jesus (no, not Monty Python) came back to me: 'Consider the birds...'

It is from a great passage (Matthew 6) in which Jesus asks people, 'Why are you worrying?'  God has provided enough for the birds to survive, and God loves you much more than the birds... so God must have provided enough for you to survive.

It is a really sobering thought.  And it is what Christian Aid's IF campaign and this month's rally in London was about.

Feeding the hungry and clothing the naked is really complicated... and yet it is also laughably simple.  God has provided enough resources in this world for us all.  But if we consume 100 times more than others then, of course, many will go without.

So my prayer today is that we will all (starting with me) learn a bit more about what it means to need... rather than want.  And that we will learn to give up some of the things that we only want, so that others can have what they need.

In the words of the Franciscan grace:

Thankyou for these wonderful gifts.

Teach us to live simply,

So that others may simply live;

In Jesus' name.

http://www.justgiving.com/tomsharp

Cup of Rice: Day One - Consuming what others produce

So, today I am in the kitchen, which makes starting the one-cup-of-rice-a-day regime all the more challenging.  I have had 2/3 cup for lunch... and I am still bloody hungry.  1/3 at dinner is not going to cut the mustard, methinks.

For everyone else's lunch I turned out a venison soup, a swede soup and a carrot and coriander soup, and Mike produced ciabatta and white loaves made with a home-made elderflower yeast.

And just as I was adding some left-over rice to the venison soup, a massive glob of rice fell into the pan and splashed hot soup all over my face.  And I was instantly very cranky, thinking that I wasn't even going to be eating it.

So this afternoon I will be praying for all those people who prepare things for us, people who grow food, who prepare food, who mine minerals, who make products, who sew fabrics and shoes...

... and who never get to enjoy as much of what they produce as we do.

Father, 

thankyou for the richness of the material gifts

and the richness of brothers and sisters

you have given us.

Give us the grace to appreciate them fully

and to share those gifts with each other.

We ask this in Jesus' name.

Support the Christian Aid India Floods Appeal on http://www.justgiving.com/tomsharp

Hunger for Justice

So, for the next five days I will be eating a bowl of meusli for breakfast, and then nothing else for the rest of the day.

Wtf?

I am raising money for the Christian Aid India Floods Appeal (http://www.christianaid.org.uk/emergencies/current/india-floods/index.aspx), by trying to live off the diet that some of the poorest people in the world survive on - a cup of rice a day.

But since I am a woosy westerner, I am adding a bowl of meusli to that - and giving up my week's wages (already donated) as a forfeit.

You can support me by following my progress on this blog, with your prayers and also with your donations, on the JustGiving link.

http://www.justgiving.com/tomsharp

From the Christian Aid website:

India Floods Appeal

At least 20,000 people remain missing following landslides and flooding in northern India. The state of Uttarakhand has been affected most.
Latest reports indicate that over 600 people have lost their lives, with the death toll likely to rise to 5,000 according to government officials.

Stranded

Heavy and incessant rains in the upper Himalayas - that began Friday 14 June – damaged roads, collapsed bridges and left stranded over 60,000 pilgrims headed for various shrines in the region.
The number now stranded is 10,000 however further rescue operations are being hindered due to fresh rains and further landslides. 
Over 100 villages have borne the brunt of the floods in the worst affected districts of Rudraprayag, Chamoli and Uttarkashi with up to a 1,000 homes damaged if not completely washed away.

 

Our response

In response, Christian Aid has launched the India Floods Appeal. Our partners are already responding with immediate relief; providing emergency items such as food and shelter, blankets and medicines.
Christian Aid partner CASA intends to help 5,000 of the most affected households – 25,000 people –with food rations such as rice, lentils, tea and sugar.
They are also providing cooking utensils and portable stoves. Plastic sheeting, blankets, torches and vital medical kits will also be provided.
Anand Kumar, Christian Aid’s India country manager said: ‘When a disaster strikes, poor families have few assets to fall back on and face extreme difficulty in meeting basic needs.

£21 could provide a month's emergency food for three families.

£40 could buy essentials for a family whose home has been washed away, including a tarpaulin and blankets, medicine, cooking equipment, buckets, candles and a torch.

£100 could help towards the cost of repairing a damaged house.  

Pray for Opium

Well, I only have about ten more weeks left at Hilfield.  This has gone scarily quickly... though at times it has felt scarily slow.

Whilst I'm still here, I am going to blog once a week on something that has captivated me, and on Fridays I am going to do an additional blog on something I have felt particularly called to pray about because I have been here.

WEEK ONE: OPIUM POPPIES

Pretty little things aren't they.  They grow as a weed in many English gardens.  When they are small they are just a tuft of little silvery-white leaves.  But when they get bigger they are absolutely beautiful.

I was digging up a series of poppies yesterday, and a tonne of other weeds as well, when it suddenly struck me: yes, it was a wonderful thing that the poppies were beginning to bloom, that they looked so pretty.  

But as our poppies are coming into season, billions of opium poppies are coming into bloom on commercial plantations around the world.  Most of these will be used to produce medical opiates and other by-products.  Some of this year's crop will however be turned into drugs that will harm and kill tens of thousands.

And that wasn't all.  I was perhaps a little tired and achey digging up the vegetable beds, but thousands of people harvesting poppies live in terrifying poverty, trapped in cycles of debt and addiction themselves and ruled by corrupt governments who aid the drug-lords that enslave them.

Perhaps it isn't so pretty.

So this afternoon I will be praying:

• For those whose task it is to secure a good opium crop for legitimate purposes
• For those who will grow, harvest and consume illegal opiates
• And for the governments that assist the cycles of slavery that are required to grow illegal opiates.

Father, 
give us the grace to treasure the gifts you have given us,
to use those gifts for good,
and to love and care for those who deliver them to us;
In Jesus' name, Amen.

Common poppies in the vegetable garden

Gushing Through Nirvana to Meh - The Short History of an Arrival

Breakfast is a particularly special time at the friary.  I have always loved breakfast, probably because I am a glutton and the thought of not eating for ten hours straight is painful even now (sitting at my desk with a cup of tea).  But breakfast at Hilfield is one of the few times in the day when it is really practical to simply zone out and just be.  

You don't have to talk to anyone (we eat in silence at breakfast), you don't have to acknowledge anyone (everything is within reaching distance) and there is no reading or purpose to the thing to make us think together, except to get snouts in the trough.

This makes breakfast a perfect time for a spot of people-watching.  I love people-watching, and I often have that awkward moment in cafes or train stations when you've been staring at a complete stranger for a matter of minutes, utterly without realising it, just thinking about what their life might be like.

***

Well, my people-watching at breakfast has turned up some pretty interesting stuff.  When you come to visit a religious community, your behaviour changes.  You may come with no expectations at all, or you may come with enough emotional and theological baggage to last you till the end of time, but everyone changes... pretty quickly as a matter of fact.

There seem to be three stages.  On the first day, guests arrive and experience a phenomenon called 'gushing.'  Common gushing involves, "Oh, isn't this place wonderful" and "Gosh, isn't there a sense of presence here."  If they've been before it might be, "Oh, this is even better than I remembered it."  And at breakfast the intial gush takes on a subtler form.  Never 'on the outside' could people derive so much pleasure, such sheer delight, from watery porridge, or sip over-brewed tea with such gusto.  The Gusher fully believes that here he or she has found the apogee of happiness.

A benedictine friend of mine ominously refers to this as 'the honeymoon period.'

On to stage two.  A day or two into their stay, the Gusher reaches Nirvana.  They start walking incredibly slowly.  Objects which hitherto had been completely uninteresting now captivate their attention for an inordinate length of time.  Sighing can be heard.  Porridge is no longer enjoyed, so much as absorbed, sometimes over a period of twenty minutes.  The tea is not gulped, but sipped through barely open lips.  The Nirvana Retreatant often spends most of breakfast with his or her eyes closed, or looking out of the window, fingers teasing the spoon or mug.

Bloody annoying if you are waiting to wash up.

No, you will get my dishes when I am done... sunning myself

In stage three, the illusion of Nirvana is brutally torn from the Nirvana Retreatant, as he or she re-enters reality.  After a while taking an eternity to eat and drink really does get boring, and closing one's eyes too much can cause one to drop off (I've not yet seen anyone faceplant porridge... but I'm waiting).  This realisation that it was all a dream can cause the Nirvana Retreatant to become irritated, but soon they settle in.  They enter the Meh phase.  Yes, it is just tea, and it is just porridge, and the brother at the end of the table did just fart, and someone did just spill their breakfast down their front, and that person is chewing really loudly...

... and they realise that life in its common day-to-day there-ness is just wonderful.

All of us, when we live in a community of any kind, or really live in any place, go through these stages, whether it is a new job, a new flat, or whatever.  I really do give thanks that some days (like this one where my trifle didn't set) I do just think, 'meh.'  Not, 'AAARGH'  or even 'YAAAAY' but good old steady 'meh.'

It is the best sign that where you are... you have arrived.

About bloody time.