A few more words about the cyclone that hit Bangladesh this past November: I don’t recall hearing much about it in the news which surprises me given the magnitude and devastation of the storm. Perhaps that was when Brittany was having her troubles or something equally as newsworthy.

The storm itself was named Sidr which means "red eye." After the storm the trees showed significant signs of heat damage - almost as if they’d been burned. We could still see the evidence of this. No one could explain to us the phenomena but there was something in the storm that generated an unusual heat enough to dry out, curl and even burn the leaves. Very odd. Whatever it was that caused this, it has given the storm a mythologically malevolent personality.

One thing we did notice on our drive though southern Bangladesh was the lack of livestock. We saw few cattle or goats - but apparently the storm killed millions. In Canada we suffer so few, and comparably mild, climatic shocks it’s almost impossible to imagine an event that would rob us of our babies, fields and homes, but also leave millions of rotting carcasses on the ground to foul the air and poison the water. My brain simply cannot wrap around the misery and shock that would follow.

We left Loban Ghola (the name of the village we visited) and traveled north east about six hours drive to Khulna. The countryside is wonderful. Again, the population density here is mind boggling. During the whole week, over 40 hours of driving through rural Bangladesh, there was never a view or vista that didn’t include hundreds if not thousands of people. So when I say country, you mustn’t imagine miles of unpopulated space as we are accustomed. Someone trying to help us grasp the reality of the population density here said "imagine placing 140 million people in Manitoba and confining them to the area south of the Trans-Canada highway, and you can begin to imagine…"

Because the plains here flood every year, the roads, pathways, villages etc. are all raised. The major roadways are raised a good 10 - 15 feet above ground level, and most pathways and hamlets at least 3-5 feet. One tends to think of road level as ground level, so the effect is to remember the whole region as endless checkered plains of sunken fields and fish ponds decorated brilliantly by tropical groves and grasses . The roadways and paths are also planted with trees (fruit and other) on their slopes (to prevent erosion) giving a verdant canopy effect which is very picturesque. The colourful dress of the Bengalis, the cheerful ease in which they relate to each other seems a perfect compliment to the steamy, sunlit, tropical landscape. What ever might be said about the suffering of folks here, they seem to be a genuinely happy people.

Since this is a land of rivers, you cannot travel far without having to cross a river on a barge or ferry. This is quite the ordeal. And the presence of white folks is a source of rather intense interest. The boat/barges themselves are rather dilapidated and cause some alarm to those of us that are used to newer modes of transportation and some semblance or at least nod to safety concerns. But they seem to work and the rivers themselves languid and swimable if need be. Often there are large lineups to get on but we have a gov’t representative traveling with us who delights in wielding his powers to bring us to the front of the queue. His name is Rajwan and he surprised us at the airport when we arrived saying "I have been assigned to accompany and assist you throughout your journey here." And indeed he did. We’ve been suspicious about why the government would assign an official to travel with us, but he was very nice and quite helpful throughout. He was with us every moment until we passed through the scanners to board our plane out of the country. Hmm…

We traveled on to Gopalganj where we stayed two nights in some sort of some abandoned government compound. I never did really come to understand the purpose of the place - it was built by a previous gov’t and then abandoned for its original purposes. Now it’s some sort of guest housing. At one end of the compound there was a military barracks with a few hundred soldiers. Across the square from the guest house were several housing complexes but I don’t know who lives there or why. This was not a pleasant place. No screens on windows, no a/c, no electricity for much of the day and evening which means no ceiling fans. Mosquitoes were as relentless as the moist heat and bed bugs, making the stay even more memorable. The beds were rock hard, ancient smelly mattresses with a topography to rival the foothills of Alberta, with no sheets nor blanket, just a bedspread which we chose not to disturb. Bathrooms were filthy - no hot water, decaying, dank concrete and cheerless. We didn’t sleep much at all. We haven’t slept much during the whole trip actually. Nights are a waiting game for the most part with occasional naps to break the monotony. As much as I sometimes rant ineloquently about the excessive toys and gadgets North Americans gorge on, we in jet-lag land give thanks to God nightly for our Ipods.

During our stay there we ventured out to more remote rural regions through the maze of narrow unmaintained roads and pathways. We visited a village of Hindus belonging to the lowest class of society. Bangladesh is predominantly Muslim with about 10 percent Hindu, two percent Christian and two percent tribal religions. There doesn’t appear to be much animosity between religious groups here. I certainly did not feel any of the hostility we sometimes felt in Ethiopia or that I overtly felt in West Bank.

These Hindus however were of the Muchi caste which is the lowest Hindu class in Bangladesh. The village itself was very poor, mostly mud huts with thatched roofs and no modern facilities. But it was well kept - even beautiful as were the people themselves. They greeted us with carnation garlands, a shower of flower petals and several dances from the children and even an educational skit written to educate the people on the dangers of diarrhea as a result of unsafe drinking water. Dysentery is a major killer here.

Canadian Foodgrains Bank supports a feeding program here so that the children get at least one nutritional meal a day. Education, especially for girls and women, is probably the most important piece of any development program. So a feeding program at the school is so incredibly important not only for the health of the children, but as a way of keeping them returning to school. It takes pressure off of the mothers, who often give up their own rations of food for their husbands and children. This leads to all sorts of health problems including low birth weight of newborns, and physical deformities in these children which add significant pressure to the family and social cost to the community.

The kids adore Nanci - everywhere we go, within a few minutes there is a crowd of laughing, giggling women and children surrounding her. Often the women want to show her their homes and touch her earrings and skin. They love to see pictures of our kids. The camera crew is thankful for Nanci’s diversion creating capacity, so they can get the shots they want uninterrupted by the crowds.

At one point a woman gestured for Nanci to follow her to see her home. I began to follow but was quickly shooed away. I have observed a bond between women that is profoundly moving and mysterious to me. It’s not the same as male bonding - it is more connected to soul and suffering I think, as opposed to the bravado and belching bond between men - which has it’s own charm to be sure.

The next day we visited an excavation site where a thousand workers (paid in food from a program supported by CFGB) were digging out the silt from a massive canal/irrigation/fishery/water diversion ditch. The canal itself is 32 feet across at the top, 8 feet across at the bottom and fifteen feet deep. The flooding from Sidr Cyclone silted in many of the water ways which requires gargantuan efforts to remedy. These folks, using only mud cutting tools and baskets, had removed about 6 feet of silt from the bottom of 5 kms of irrigation ditch in only 15 days. The silt itself is left beside the ditch in a ten foot high mound that the women pound into a road after it has dried out some. The irrigation ditches here help divert water when there is too much and bring it in when there is not enough. They are stocked with fish so folks can feed themselves between growing and harvesting seasons and during the rainy season. They also serve as important transportation avenues. The roadway that is built beside is planted with trees and grasses that stabilize the roadways during flooding seasons as well as providing fruit and lumber for harvesting. Everything here is about managing the good and harmful potential of excess water.

We also visited a farmer who has recently completed a training session of farming techniques to help him increase the yield of his tiny plot of land. He was digging up his first crop of potatoes since the training which has already doubled his usual yield. The whole time we were talking and filming him, he seemed a bit anxious about me, several times trying to say something discreetly to me. It turns out my zipper was down and he was desperate about my potential humiliation. It ended up being a funny moment that brought a lot of laughter and warmth.

Later we visited a fish farmer who also had also recently attended a training program (similarly sponsored by CFGB) which has helped him to double the output of his wee pond. We were lucky to have come upon him right when he and several men were in the water wrestling with a mammoth net pulling in thousands of jumping fish. It was exhilarating, joyful and humorous to watch.

We returned to Dhaka for one more night before catching a flight to Calcutta. Actually, we still hadn’t gotten our visas to enter India while we were in Canada. So we reapplied at the Indian consulate in Dhaka when we arrived here and didn’t know if we would even be allowed access until a few days before we were to go.

We arrived in Kolkata Sunday morning on route to Patna, a city of about 2 million in the center of Bahir province which is the poorest province of India. 30 million people crammed onto this tiny plot of land. I don’t have the stats on the actual square kms of the province but it seems about as populated as Bangladesh.

When the customs officer in Calcutta saw where we were headed he shook his head and said, "Patna?! Not so nice." I’ve been to Calcutta (now called Kolkata) before and know what that means. The possibility of experiencing worse frightened me.

So right now I’m writing from my hotel in Patna. The hotel is meager by our standards but just fine. It’s clean and even has wi-fi!!! But Patna is easily the most destitute and ugly place I’ve seen in my life. The crowded streets, the crumbling unkempt structures, the smell of feces and urine mixed with rotting food, garbage and diesel, the insufferable heat and the throngs of people, cattle, swine and black smog-vomiting vehicles seem to suck the memory of beauty away.

We arrived here three days ago and had most of that day to sleep and recoup from the rigors of Bangladesh before our week in India. Then we traveled deep into the rural country side to visit two hamlets of the Masihari people. (Masihari means - the rat eaters). They don’t actually eat rats, but often survive by hunting for rat dens and robbing them of the grains the rats have stored there. These are the untouchables - the lowest and poorest cast of Indian society - among the poorest of the world. Life is so miserable here, so dirty and ugly. I had forgotten. I was here back in ‘94 but somehow had forgotten how devastating it is: elderly women living on a hundred dollars a year, whole families living on 70 cents a day. We sat in a circle out in the open sun with the whole village as they told us what life is like here. Those that have jobs work for absentee landowners for a few kilos of rice a day. Every year, during the rainy season (starting in a couple weeks) the plains flood, their whole village goes under water for two months and the villagers survive by huddling on top of an escarpment the government built for them back in the ’70s.

Only one in several hundred children of the first village was in school. They are badly malnourished; the babies dangerously under weight, the women are thin, worn and sad.

The government set up a food-for-work program to help them survive the rainy seasons, but the funding gets swallowed up by various levels of corrupt municipal officers who don’t care about them. The folks we’ve met here are trying to set up education programs to teach the Masihari about their rights and how to defend them. But it all seems pretty hopeless. I asked one of the workers what keeps him going - considering the magnitude of the problems and the unlikeliness anything will change. He just gently smiled and said he loved Christ, and that out of gratitude to God he would work 24/7 for the poor for the rest of his life even if nothing changes. That is something I remember about India, that it is full of Mother Theresas. It’s rather humbling.

Our accommodations in the country were dismal. I think we’re a bit over saturated from experience at this point which brings down one’s toleration level. More bed-bug bites. I hate the bed bugs.

As compared to Bangladesh, the people here don’t seem happy at all. They are friendly for sure and jump up to help at any sign of need. But life here is hot, hard and relatively devoid of the consolation of beauty. A depressed mood has settled over our traveling group and I think we’d all be relieved to be airlifted out of here. Tomorrow we fly to Kolkata and then on to a place by the sea where we’ll visit a few more sites before returning to Kolkata to catch our flight home.

I’m very glad to be here. I’ve learned a lot and met some wonderful folks but this is the definitely the hardest trip I’ve ever taken. Maybe I’m just getting older and less resilient. We’ll be glad to be on our way home.

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Bangladesh is amazing. However I’m not exactly thrilled about my body being covered in bed-bug and spider bites. Not all the accomodations have been 5 star

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 My friend Byron just sent me a note regarding the recent publication of Mother Theresa’s private letters that reveal her ongoing dark night of the soul. Personally, I don’t find her doubts at all off-putting. But rather they fill me with hope and make me love her more.

 Here is what Byron wrote:

"Just read a fascinating article on Mother Theresa, another well known
stain. (Byron loves to flip the t around - SB) The church is up in arms because she admittd to having doubt about
Christ being in her life since she was a young nun and had just started her
hands on outreaching ministry and stopped teaching. And remained feeling
that way until her death. The church was appalled, having pronounced her a
Saint.

The thing that stuck is how St. Ben’s (the church Byron and I attend - SB) allows doubt and confusion to come
into the light of day, and faces it head on, while it is not de rigeur with
most churches…

In some of her letters she wrote that she felt forsaken, but did not the
man himself say those same words? Was she unconciously trying to be more Christ like? Is there a parallel here? She worried that she suffered from the sin of pride, was it this feeling of sharing the feeling of being forsaken that she worried about?

Her request in her will was for her letters to be destroyed, but the
church would not allow it. Seems to fly in the face of their dismay at what she wrote.

All in all a thoughtful piece."

 

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My trip to Ethiopia has changed me somewhat, but not in a way I expected. One does expect that an encounter with the poorest country in the world would have an effect, "maybe I’ll be more compassionate, perhaps I’ll be more grateful." And those are both true to some extent. But a conviction growing in me far stronger than the impulse to greater generosity and thankfulness, is the conviction that I simply must consume less: less energy, less food, fewer commodities; consume less pleasure, less beauty, less water, less time.

Consumption is the process by which we lay ahold of something in order to use it up, leaving only waste. Simone Weil suggests that much ill comes from "eating what we should only look at." Yet we in the West have become the high priests of an empirical religion defined by the twin commandments ‘commodify’ and ‘consume.’ And so we commodify all things: people, relationships, experiences, art, health, ministry, even protest. Recently I read that that as bio-genetics becomes the new growth industry of this century, there are already companies attempting to patent certain genes so that, for instance, if you want to genetically alter something (like a potentialy "faulty" fetus, for example) you just may have to purchase the rights from the owners. Walter Brueggeman calls this increasingly unassailable trend/religion ‘Theo-capitalism.’

Anyway… from the Bread for the World website I learned that if we took all the arable land in the world and divided it equally between each person on the planet, our individual allotment would be roughly nine acres. In Ethiopia, the average farm family survives on less than five acres - some much less. In Canada, about 30 acres of land is required to sustain the lifestyle of the average individual. And here’s the kicker… for everyone on the earth to live the lifestyle of the average Canadian would require the land resources of four or five more earths. It’s a stat that keeps playing in my head like an unwelcome song.

So I’ve begun the deliberate, albeit pitifully slow process of learning to live with less. One of the first things I have begun to let go of is the luxury of a fully lit home. Simply put, I turn off lights in rooms no-one is in. It seems like such a small gesture, but having begun to attend to this, I am a bit surprised by how wasteful we have been with our "right to light."

I have also decided to drink less coffee. Actually, this has taken on the form of a fast where I don’t drink coffee at all during the week. But happily, in true orthodox fasting tradition, Sunday is feast day! - and one musn’t fast on feast day. Yay! Other than insisting on fair trade coffee, I’m not sure if this helps anyone else very much , but it does help to teach me, as Dallas Willard once said, that there is nothing wrong with the world when I don’t get what I want.

I’ve also begun to make Wednesdays more of a deliberate fasting day. I don’t collect or even look at emails all day and only access the Internet at all if my work requires it. Brueggeman says that the purpose of fasting is to break the false assumptions, loyalties and linkages we’ve unwittingly allowed sovereignty over our lives. It’s amazing how hard it is to go a whole day without checking email. But it has really helped me face the reality that perhaps I’m not as important as I think.

I have also begun to eat only plain bread for breakfast and lunch (on Wednesdays). No big sacrifice here, but it does serve to focus one’s prayer on the reality of so many millions who don’t get enough food never mind the endless varieties, delightful combinations and opportunity to experience food mearly for pleasure or entertainment.

These are such puny starts. But already, in such a short time in the shallow waters of asceticism, I have begun to experience the world as less disappointing, less boring, less frightening. I’ve even had moments of near rapture, or joy. My priest says it is the fast that makes the feast!

Another change… I have started taking the bus and leaving the car at home. This has been a more demanding change. Out lives revolve around the assumption that process is evil (time wasting) and product is divine. There is so much good to do, how can one justify getting less work done because it takes longer to get there? Yet in our increasingly obsessive pursuit of productivity, so much is lost and so much damage done; environmentaly, communaly, bodily. Yet it already occurs to me that I don’t need the (second) car at all. Nanci’s work demands it, her job often requires her to travel out of town. But my work doesn’t. I can adjust to a slower pace and so I should. "We can’t do everything, but what we can do, we must do." So the current plan is to sell the second car and redirect the roughly $400 a month it takes to keep a car on the road in order to upgrade the insulation on our older home which often gets frost on the inside walls during winter.

Now that I’m learning to slow down, to walk, to take the bus, I’m feeling much more connected to neighborhood, my body, and to my surroundings. I’m starting to recognize people on the street and have even begun to wave to some who are beginning to seem almost like fond aquaintances even though we may not yet have spoken. It’s nice.

The other day, I was asked to come sing at the opening of a homeless shelter (Siloam Mission) in downtown Winnipeg. This wasn’t a media event, it was the actual first-night availability of 60 new beds for folks that don’t have access to one. When I got there, the doors were not yet open and there were several dozen people waiting in line to be let in. John Mohan, the executive director, assured everyone of their absolute welcome. Then he read a scripture, said a prayer and asked me to sing a song before the doors opened. As I was singing, I recognized a woman standing patiently in line. Afterward I made my way over to her to learn how it was I knew her when it suddenly dawned on me - "I’ve seen you on the bus!" She smiled warily at me and said, "My name is Kristine. Next time, say hi!"

I look forward to it.

 

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I walk Daisy (we didn’t name her) most days for 45 minutes or so. And that’s just me. She gets walked at least one other time every day by someone else in the family. If Nanci is walking her, it’s more likely to be an hour to an hour and a half. Daisy is an energetic little Jack Russel we picked up last fall through the Pet Rescue organization. And she’s already changed my life - mostly because now I walk.

I’ve always disliked almost any physical exertion. I hate riding bikes, I hate lifting weights. I joined the gym last year and went diligently for a couple of months but eventually stopped going and canceled my membership. Too much work getting there, changing, publicly humiliating myself, changing, going home, laundry.

But this walking thing is okay. I’ve gotten to know my neighborhood and am starting to wave to folks who are becoming familiar simply because I pass by - not in a car. Yesterday there was a little boy on the front step of a house a few blocks from here. He was distressed and said, "mister, I can’t find my grandpa!" Apparently he was playing on the computer but when he came out of the room, his grandpa was nowhere to be found. I took his hand and we looked in the back yard, the garage and out down the back lane. I rang the doorbell, but there was no response. I eventually went in fearing maybe his Grandpa had fallen or had a heart attack or something. It feels weird walking though someone’s house uninvited, but I checked every room, all the while getting more concerned that something might really be wrong.

We did find Grandpa in the basement. He must be hard of hearing and was puttering away at something down there. "Sonny!" he said with an affectionate thick east-European accent, "I would never leave you!" He shook my hand and thanked me and Daisy and I were on our way.

I‘ve also dropped about 10 pounds. That can’t be bad. I heard a statistic that roughly 60% of Canadians are overweight. The cost of our poor physical health to the health care system is roughly the same amount of money Canada has committed to global poverty relief (Millennium Development commitment 2000) but according to Stephen Harper, it’s a commitment we can’t afford to honour - and so we don’t.

Is it reasonable to think of walking as a meaningful and practical way to love others - a gesture of kinship?

This morning was glorious! The sun was blazing but the air was still cool. Kids were rushing to beat the bell. A friend recognized me as he drove by on his way to work and we exchanged fond greetings. As we strolled along I started noticing how much garbage was strewn over lawns and boulevards and began to pick up as I walked, always discarding each time we passed a garbage can. Suddenly and unexpectedly I was overwhelmed with happiness - not ecstatic or anything, just happy.

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Below is the narration I wrote for the Canadian Foodgrains Bank film of Nanci and my trip to Ethiopia. I’ll be filming a bit more this weekend and then the producer will begin to piece together the documentary.

I am quite exited about the END HUNGER FAST campaign to be launched this fall. I am increasingly convinced that there is no program to end hunger that will work in the long run unless we in the west voluntarily divest of some of our wealth and reduce our consumption drastically - hence Fast. Its a conviction I didn’t expect to come home with, but just giving money is not enough. I’ve begun to seek ways of using less, consuming less, eating less - I’ve all but stopped using my car and am going to sell it right away. I’m getting used to the bus system in Winnipeg and walking to places where I can.

It all seems so small and insignificant but our grossly disproportionate use of the world’s resources, mostly for pleasure, novelty and convenience is really hurting people in other lands. It’s hurting ourselves as well. Last week the news said that 60% of Canadians are overweight. The health costs to the government of an overweight population is enormous. Our government claims it can’t afford to meet it’s commitment to the UN Millennium Development Goals, while our health costs as a result of our own immoderation far exceed what we have committed (but apparently can’t afford) to combat world poverty.

What a fitting metaphor - here we are, sluggish and portly from empty calories - overweight and starving at the same time. Like a snake that doesn’t realize it’s eating its own tail.

 

 

My trip to Ethiopia began… with a fast.

Among other things, I was seeking direction from God regarding my growing awareness and concern around issues of World Hunger. As a Christian in an age of unprecedented wealth, how do I respond to the reality of millions people without adequate food, without adequate water? How do I find my way through the often contradictory or politicized solutions put forward to address an issue that, in the end, is really a crisis of justice and of love?

So I decided to enter into a fast, and I wanted it to be a fast that would constantly remind me to pray.What could I give up that would draw my attention throughout the day?

I decided to fast from coffee.

A month later, I receive a call from the Canadian Foodgrains Bank asking my wife Nanci and me to visit several development projects they sponsor in Ethiopia. Of course I was delighted at the opportunity to visit such a mythical, lengendary land, but I burst out laughing when I found out that Ethiopia was also the geographic place of origin for the coffee tree.

—————–

Although Ethiopia is home to some of the poorest people in the world, what struck us first was the profound beauty of the land and her people. I had no idea! My images of Ethiopia were formed by media pictures of famine back in the early 80s. I remembered expansive wasteland, withered trees and withering bodies. Nothing in me was prepared for the wealth of breathtaking grandeur and loveliness that awaited us around every bend.

Ethiopians themselves have a strong beauty appropriate to their landscape. There is a grand tranquility and charm of people and land here that generates a curious longing and ache in a visitor like me.

77 million people living in an area 1/10 the size of Canada; children everywhere – playing… threshing…herding goats… returning from school hand in hand with books in arm. Always ready with an eager smile and a chance to practice their English on a foreigner – most requesting a pen to help them with their schoolwork.

Our first stop was a base camp in the Afar Desert.

Here 1.6 million pastoralists are facing the end of their traditional nomadic way of life as a result of climate change. For centuries this arid region has sustained the Afar people and its millions of goats and cattle. It has not been an easy life, but it has been a good life. Recently however, the frequency of drought has dramatically increased and the land is no longer capable of sustaining her people without some kind of intervention.

Under the guidance of an energetic group of young Ethiopian agricultural and engineering professionals, the Afar people have built a water weir on this meager river, diverting some of its water down a 5 kilometer irrigation ditch, effectively turning thousands of acres of dry land into a rich agricultural resource. Having never been farmed, the soil is wonderfully fertile – just add water and a little crop rotation know-how, and what was desert becomes a sustainable resource of glorious food. This is the first bumper crop – more than is locally needed. For the first time, these new farmers have the happy problem of getting their excess food to market.

Elizabeth coordinated the first irrigation project. She comes from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital city and has a degree in agriculture. At first the Afar men said that a project like this would never work if lead by a woman – but in her own shy, determined manner, Elizabeth proved them wrong. The result has been a bit of a cultural revolution in the community as women now sit on councils they have never sat on before.

The initial project has been so successful that a second one is now underway some ten kilometers down river. The workers come by the hundreds every day. They are paid in food supplied by the Canadian Foodgrains Bank to build a structure and new way of life that will eventually render such aid unnecessary.

This is a real cause for celebration! In the evening I was given the opportunity to sing some of my songs – and we were given the opportunity to receive the gift of song and dance in return.

We also visited a project in South Gondar – half way across the country from the Afar region.

Here, again, a group of dedicated young Ethiopian professionals are working with the community to rehabilitate tired, over farmed and badly eroded hillside with a multi-faceted program of reforestation, terracing and check dams to halt and reverse the damage of erosion. Crop rotation programs help to replenish the soil.

Most farm families are surviving off the harvest of 2 to 5 acres of land. With the population of Ethiopia expected to double in the next 20 years, any loss of arable land or soil fertility is a crisis.

Mobilizing the people with a food for work program supported by the Canadian Foodgrains Bank, Ephraim oversees the building of roads, construction of terraces, water harvesting, the rehabilitation of gullies and reforestation for firewood and construction.

Only a few years ago, these hills were stripped of trees and the soil was eroding at an alarming rate. The result of the work here has made sustainable livelihoods possible.

Back at the camp – a nursery produces 4.5 million seedlings a year. Again, a food for work program supported by the Canadian Foodgrains Bank employs many to plant, water and nurture the very trees, grasses and crops that will become their own livelihood. This is a soup to nuts project:

Some harvest seeds…

Some sift and mix soils …

Others make soil plugs…

Some plant…

Others water…

The result seems miraculous;
Olive trees… foraging grasses… sorghum…corn…

Food Security is not something that worries the average Canadian citizen. We don’t think much about it much at all. It is readily available and as a result we are free to invest our time and energy into relationships, personal development, business, invention, leisure and culture. It is not so for those whose labor can be undone by a single year of drought. It is not so for a country whose prime labor force is being decimated by AIDS, a disease which is greatly exacerbated by malnutrition. It is not so for a country whose stability has been undermined by internal warfare, the residual effects of colonization, unfair international trade rules, unsupportable debt and paternalistic aid that sometimes meets the needs of donors more than recipients.

Hunger is real, but it is not inevitable. Nanci and I witnessed amazing commitment, and thoughtful, sustainable solutions as a result of the work that Canadian Foodgrains Bank supports.

We also witnessed how far a little support goes. Roughly $35 can feed a family of five for a month. And that is certainly something that we can do. But here I also began to understand that our own lifestyle back home is an obstacle to long-term solutions. In Ethiopia, a family lives off of the fruit of less than five acres. In Canada, it takes roughly 30 acres per person to support our present lifestyle. Shockingly, for every human on earth to enjoy the same lifestyle as we do at home, would require the resources of 5 more earths.

So for me, what started as a fast will continue to be a fast; learning to live with less, learning to live more simply so that others can simply live. And I invite anyone who wants, to join me on this journey. Besides offering others a chance to contribute to the welfare of others financially, we have also set up a website to discuss and promote ways of living that show our kinship with all whom God loves.

Jesus once referred to himself as the bread of life. This is the same man who first appeared to us as a baby in a lowly feeding trough. While in Ethiopia, I suddenly recalled, with a sense of inspired urgency, that after his resurrection, several of Jesus’ friends didn’t recognize him until they began to share a meal. There is a profound connection between hunger and the gospel. Simply put, Christ is revealed in the sharing of bread, or perhaps, we are most like Christ when we share bread.

The kingdom of God is a banquet…

So gather what you can and come to the table…

It’s time for everyone to eat.

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I have finally written a new song!

The last song I wrote was Everything’s Lies - almost exactly four years ago after having wasted a night watching late-night TV. After a couple hours of infomercials, sensationalist newscasts (America was marching to Iraq) and Evangelists Gone Wild I lost the ability to distinguish between the different shows and now recall the evening as a haze- drenched, postmodern collage of shameless hucksters just tryin’ to make a dishonest livin’.

So I wrote: Everything’s lies / isn’t it swell / sex in a silver cup / serve it up with the televangel / no worries here/ trust the t.v. / there’s nothing of consequence / with God on a leash.

Shortly after that night I found myself in Palestine/Israel visiting several Palestinian Christian communities and organizations in the West Bank. There I witnessed first hand the malevolent raw power of a military occupation designed to slowly squeeze the life out of an entire people. The trauma of what I witnessed, along with the shame of belonging to a people group who have largely supported this brutality, shut me down. I really haven’t known what to say since. I’ve spent countless hours reading about the Middle-East; politics and history. I’ve read tons on Islam. Specifically I have read many accounts of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and recently took a course on the same topic.

But I can’t fix it. And so one grieves. One grieves one’s own limitations. One grieves the incomprehensability of God. One grieves the particular moms and dads and children in other lands whose lives are ruptured by violence.

Last week I was reading the latest GEEZ magazine. Under the heading, The Luxury of Hope, editor Will Braun asks if our religion and spirituality are deep enough to "contemplate catastrophe." It reminded me of when my daughter was six or seven years old. One night she couldn’t sleep because she was afraid a "bad man" might break in and hurt her. I reassured her that Jesus loved and her wouldn’t let anything bad happen. As she began to dry her tears she looked up at me and asked if, then, Jesus doesn’t love the children who do get hurt.

Shame on me.

Later (in the same, aforementioned GEEZ magazine) in a beautifully written piece called The Washing, Jessie Van Eerden recalls being interrupted while doing laundry, which she eloquently understands as redemptive work. A phone call from her father informs her that her cousin Billy has committed suicide:

It shakes me to the core, Billy’s quiet death.
There is good work to do.
There is good work to do.

Indeed.

In Billy’s Wake lyric by Steve Bell and Jessie Van Eerden

We’re not alone
laundry awash in the mid-morning sun
you can see angels dance as they try blouses on
there is good work to do

We’re not alone
casting long shadows as the day wears on
Billy had troubles, now Billy is gone
there is good work to do

kissing eyelids closed like caskets
breaking bread and filling baskets
pressing dress and swabbing soiled floors

fast remains of feast and fanion
evidence of ghost companions
greeting some and showing some the door

we’re not alone
wordlessly stung by a sliver blue moon
closed casket wake in a cold living room
there is good work to do

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