Hunger 101
Today we did a simulation of being poor and hungry. We became families who needed to buy food so we could eat. It seemed most of us didn’t have enough money, so we tried to apply for food stamps but the office closed before anyone could finish the weighty application. Some of us had sense enough to visit a food shelf. We were distracted by those of us who were children, some of whom stole from their neighbors, and whom one Russian woman tried to purchase with allusions to being hungry. This was somewhat disconcerting.
Earlier in the class we looked at pictures of poor folk in decrepit conditions. Today’s activity worked with those images from the inside out. For in seeing the pictures we were outsiders observing inward, but in simulation we were outsiders observing outward.
Personally, I delved further into a firm belief into the necessity for the inward change of humanity from Christ through his spirit. We can spoon feed people for years, but they die anyway. Through our Lord they may become alive and never die. But this is not to say we shouldn’t feed people who need food. On the contrary, the church is the place where the hungry ought to get fed, both eternal food and temporal food. We have an example of this in the supper of our Lord, both temporal and eternal food. And another illustration is the early church in Jerusalem “There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold…and it was distributed to each as any had need.”