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:
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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.
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