We live in a curious
time.
We have around us an
amazing and truly unbelievable selection of food items, with quantities our
forebearers would find unimaginable.
Our stores are
stocked with a dizzying array of selections, our fridges, freezers and
cupboards are seldome empty. Our society drips in wealth and power and stuff …
Yet, how often have
we stood in front of our fridge and pondered its contents and uttered the
words: “There’s nothing to eat …” (Hannah says it frequently … not because I’m
neglectful and starving my children but because our selection in appropriate
and nutritional snacks differs …)
That is the society
we live in though … we are surrounded with an incredible quantity and selection
of stuff – from food to gadgets and gizmos, and we still feel it is never quite
enough …
Sadly, in our country
today one of the fast growing sectors of business are the soup kitchen/food
bank sector. The not-for-profit agencies that serve the most marginalized and
most vulnerable among us.
We need only look at
the continued and unrelenting growth in demand our own local food bank has been
experiencing to see the frightening proof of that statistic.
In my twenty years of
ministry I have been involved in the work and ministry of food banks and
outreach ministries from Ontario to BC and back again. I’ve watched as smaller
and smaller towns have had to set up their own food banks to meet the demands.
I was part of the decision
to take a simple voluntary food cupboard in the office of the Minnedosa Church,
and turn it into a Food Bank with a client list, and an organization that put
together monthly hampers designed to meet the nutritional needs of a household
for a week … it was a decision and process opposed by many within the Church
and the community because they couldn’t believe it was needed …
It was needed … it
was used … and it is growing …
To speak of my
personal experience for a moment, I think I have had a unique opportunity in my
life journey to have experienced the work and ministry of Food Banks from a
variety of vantage points.
In 2000 when I
arrived in Minnedosa my first experience of the regional food bank was dropping
off the Thanksgiving donations of produce, canned goods and cash at Samaritan
House in Brandon. I still vividly remember walking into their tiny cramped
little space and bringing in boxes of stuff for them … I was shocked … but I
was hooked.
Over the next ten
years, the folks at Samaritan House became and remain friends, and my
involvement with them expanded and diversified. Together they helped as we
expanded the food programme in Minnedosa, they invited me to help when the CP
Holiday Train made its annual trips across Canada and stopped in Brandon and
Minnedosa, we organized a Tom Jackson lunch concert in the Elemetary School in
Minnedosa and collected thousands of pounds of food for the Food Banks, and over
and over we worked together to raise awareness and collect much needed food for
an insatiable and ever growing demand.
Then when my
employment as a United Church minister was terminated and I spent 13 months
working under contract for the Feds as the Homelessness Coordinator for the
City of Brandon, I got to see the other side of the table as we worked to
secure funding for needed equipment and programming to serve the vulnerable in
Brandon. I also took time in that position to visit the dozen or so shelterless
individuals who lived in the alleys and under bridges around Brandon’s downtown
– listening to their stories, hearing about their experiences and trying to
understand why they were truly homeless …
Then when that
contract ended, I experienced the Samaritan House Food Bank in a wholly
different way … I became a client.
I stopped by when I
was able and volunteered my time and my strength, and deeply appreciated the
boxes and bags of food that I was able to take home to supplement our food
stocks.
For a very long 18
months I worked a variety of part-time positions. I delivered a weekly
newspaper – at 40 years of age I became a newspaper boy once again, I was paid
to write a monthly column on poverty and homelessness, I worked part-time
pulpit supply in a Presbyterian Church, I worked as a research assistant for
the Office of the President at Brandon University, I worked as a research
assistant for the Department of Rural Development helping prepare an academic
magazine for publication, I worked as part-time relief cashier at a local bookstore,
and as needed I drove the pick-up & deliver truck for Samaritan House
gathering the food donated by stores and businesses and bringing it back to the
food bank.
All of that work
barely covered the cost of living for me and the kids, but it helped me
appreciate the absolute necessity having bread programmes, hamper programmes
and other food programmes truly are.
Without Samaritan
House there would have been times when even having a loaf of bread would have
been a challenge … fortunately,
Samaritan House was there to supply day old loaves and extras like bagels that
would have otherwise been out of reach …
I learned by
experience how quickly life can turn and how we can move from being a
benefactor to a recipient …
I was fortunate,
because I knew my set back was temporary, and that in time something would pull
me out of it and I would find my way back to full time employment. But others –
tens of thousands across our country today are not so lucky. With the loss of
industries, factories and jobs, the number of people needing food banks and the
assistance they offer is growing every week …
And yet, we are
blessed and fortunate to live in a country that has so much wealth …
We need to re-orient
our thinking … not to something new and startling, but back to something we’ve
always known.
When I was a Beaver
leader we taught our colony the simple idea of “Sharing, sharing, sharing” – we
stressed the importance of working together and looking out for one another. We
valued cooperation and compassion …
As a nation, it
wasn’t that long ago that we collectively embodied the SAME values … we teach
our children those ideas, we look back with nostalgic fondness on those ideas …
we need to just take them down off the shelf, dust them off and reclaim them
for ourselves.
And it starts by
living our lives with an honest appreciation of how blessed and fortunate we
truly are. Instead of opening the fridge and looking around and saying “there’s
nothing to eat …” we need to open our fridge and look at it and say “wow,
thanks …”
Then, the next step –
one as people of faith, we can rightly claim – is to go out into the world and
share that understanding of appreciation and gratitude with others.
When people complain
about how high our taxes are, instead of agreeing and grumbling along, we
should dare to smile and say – “Yeah, our taxes may seem high, but look at the
amazing array of things we benefit from because of them … Hospitals, school,
roads, communication, old age security, safe food, safe travel, the post office,
cbc, the police, fire and paramedic services, ORNGE helicopters and planes …
the list goes on and on …” We may think we have it bad, but really – we have it
pretty good.
I remember having a
beer once with a Cabinet Minister in Manitoba just prior to an election, and
saying to him “Why don’t you run a campaign outlining ALL the things we get for
our tax dollar, and instead of offering hollow promises of tax cuts, invite us
to appreciate ALL of the benefits we enjoy BECAUSE of our taxes?”
He laughed and said –
“you know, you have a point. But we’d never get re-elected because people don’t
want to know where their tax dollars really go, they want to know the gov’t is
willing to cut taxes if asked …”
I will not apologize
for saying then, AND now, that such an approach is unfaithful. Cutting taxes
means cutting programmes that hurt the most vulnerable and marginalized – the
very people we are called to care for and care about. Being a people
appreciative of life and all it offers us, means being willing to share the
blessings and bounty with others …
That is the
Thanksgiving Message we should be shouting from the roof tops as we strive to
be a faithful, faith-filled and grateful people.
To love lives of faithful gratitude, appreciating what we have and remembering to share ...
May it be so – thanks be to God … Let us pray …
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