I choose when I am hungry. This is the thought that I am left with when trying to think of my hungriest moment. The hungriest I have ever been was about 4 days into a 5 day fast which I was doing with my wife. During those five days we would only drink a gross lemonade and syrup mix to provide enough calories to stay functional. It astonishes me to think that I have only come close to REAL hunger during times when I have made an intentional choice to stay away from food. All those other "hungry" moments in my life weren't REAL hunger, they were just little jerks from my stomach telling me it had finished digesting and was getting bored being empty. I think REAL hunger involves a certain degree of actual danger and fear. I was never afraid during that fast with my wife because I knew that if things got too difficult I could just take a trip to the fridge, or even if I passed out from hunger (yeah right) I could go to a doctor and receive medical attention right away. The people in the world experiencing REAL hunger have almost no where to go to get food, and they usually have no one waiting to attend to their medical needs if they begin to starve.
Today was a particularly difficult day for me to post a picture. Usually if I don't have a picture in my own files to post with a blog entry I find one on Google images that is appropriate. I barely finished typing in "hunger" as a google images search before getting choked up. Several images of emaciated children and infants popped up right away. It's hard to imagine an image that better captures how far away this world is from God's Kingdom than the picture of a starving child. How can God stomach seeing these images everyday when I can barely stand looking at them for a few seconds? I had to decide whether I would force you, my readers, to stare at an image that you probably would never have willingly looked upon, or whether I would show a more diluted figurative image that pointed to hunger without showing it's actual ugliness. I went with the latter, because I think each of us has to choose for ourselves whether we are ready to enter into the ugly world of the suffering and the poor. How privileged we are! Not only can we choose to eat or be hungry whenever we like, but we can also choose to turn our eyes away from those who are starving in the world whenever we like... maybe privileged is the wrong word...God have mercy.
Personal:
How would you describe the worst hunger you have ever experienced? Do you think every person should have an inalienable right to food? Why or why not?
Action:
1. Every 3 seconds a child dies from hunger. Why is this important for you to know? How SHOULD this change the life of a person who has access to at least three full meals a day?
2. Check out the 30-hour famine link below in the "Quest Sites." Consider fasting for a few days and pray for people who are hungry the world over. Use the money you save from going without food and donate it to an organization that provides meals for the hungry.
Posts
I did the 30-Hour Famine a couple of times, and it was amazing to see just how silly folks were getting by the end of the fast. It was pretty telling to see how goofy I WAS getting!
ReplyDeleteThere was another duration of time - 12 or 14 days - when I fasted and prayed (though not enough of the latter) for Constant Recourse's first CD Release Concert. That was challenging. But Elliott's point about agency rings true: I chose to be hungry. What would I do if I couldn't decide on my satiation one way or the other?
Finally, after two weeks of hunger (mere hunger, not starvation), I ate - TOO MUCH! Evidently, the stomach shrinks and you can hurt yourself by eating a ton after a time of fasting. It's interesting to think about the stomach shrinking when it doesn't get enough food. Some people aren't ABLE to eat enough to derive nutrients if they've been starving for a really long time. How does this concept of stomach-shrinking play out in the Bible's hunger imagery? Thank God that He never lets our spiritual stomachs shrink to the point of not being able to accept him. Sadly it seems that sometimes we do.
-zg
I forgot to eat once for a whole day and a half. . all I had was water. That was when I wss about 18 and my parents went away for the weekend.
ReplyDeleteI was so caught up in cleaning the house and doing whatever I was doing that when I woke up I had these awful pangs that really did not feel well at all. I have read books where kids have gone three whole days sometimes without eating. Stuff like that is crazy to me to even think about because if it hurt that much for me to not eat for a day and a half, I couldn't imagine at all more days and what they must feel.