Unlikely Banter: On the Road home from Alexandria

This was first written in pen on paper in the back seat of Larry's car riding home this afternoon down I94.

3 people, a woman in her 80's, a man in his 50's, and me (in my 30's) headed together to a regional hunger retreat at a church camp up north this week. I was one of the younger, though not the very youngest participants who came along for the weekend. I came because of a hand addressed post-card I received from a retired pastor in Northfield. It wasn't to me personally but to the church and it was enough (that it was hand-written) to really get my attention.

Most of the presenters were professionals who raise funds, organize projects, and encourage people to speak up for the needs of the poor. These professional advocates come from what one of my car mates called an alphabet soup of church and para church groups who seek to serve those in need: Bread for the World, LWR, ELCA World Hunger, LCPCM, CWS, etc. They are all well known at church gatherings coming to visit each year and tell there stories and ask for support searching for ways to link the church, found always in the congregation, with the church found beyond our local congregations.

The bulk of the crowd was older and clearly politically informed and engaged in a variety of places on the left side of the spectrum. Many have been involved in hunger and poverty related issues for years. My 3 years working with a community food shelf is small compared to the years a few 80 something farmers have spent the last 30 years trying to figure out how to give from their abundance to the worlds very poorest. The professionals had pitches to make; but these guys had a common dream, that God could use there abundance to transform the world. The professionals and agencies can and do offer much globally, but the power of farmers learning to care for neighbors half the world away is to great to overlook.

There was (as can be expected at Lutheran gatherings) lots of coffee, bars, food, conversation, along with a multi hour bible study, devotions, communion, and presentations on a few new subjects as diverse as sustainable agriculture and work that LWR (Lutheran World Relief) is doing in areas hit by the tsunami in Indonesia a little over 3 years ago.

All of the presenters offered collectively (though maybe not intentionally) a different perspective on reality than what is presented in the conventional consumption/marketing driven media that shapes so many of our values and perceptions. Much of what was said, if not all, is what I've heard before from people convinced that hunger in our age is a result of human action or inaction not just natural circumstances. Statistics like, 1 in 6 people in the world live on less than $1 a day are real; they just don't make the cover of Time or Newsweek. Our culture is told more about starlets and their personal problems than the real problems of the hungry and poor. These issues are not new, and sadly neither is the audience who came. Most were repeating a journey they'd made before to talk about justice, poverty, hunger, and the best ways that Lutherans can respond in Jesus name to these situations.