Hunger Challenge Retreat

Tomorrow, I'm heading to Ft. Collins for a weekend hunger challenge retreat.  We will be fasting all weekend and discussing issues of poverty and hunger and how Christians can respond to these crises.  I'm really looking forward to it.  I find that my eating habits are getting very sloppy, especially now that I'm by myself.  (Jeff is still working in Winter Park)  I don't put the care and attention to what I put in my mouth like I do when I'm with Jeff.  Why is that?  Do I think that by myself, I'm not worth it?  I don't think so.  It's just harder to get excited about making a nice meal when I have no one to share it with.  I know all of you single people know what I'm talking about.  

Anyway-- a time of fasting will get me in a meditative mode.  Hopefully I'll journal to keep my mind off my rumbling stomach.  I know that it'll help me get back down to the basics -- like the sacredness of food.  It's something we all need and something we all can share with one another.  And why don't people have enough and why do some people have way too much?  

I'm also going to be teaching a "body and prayer" class during the retreat as well.  We'll be looking at scriptures that use body as an avenue toward a closer relationship to God.  Then discuss how we use our own bodies to further this relationship.  I'm hoping that it will be a complex discussion -- because it is a complex topic.  The bible has just as many negative scriptures on body as it does positive.  Our society certainly gives us mixed messages about whether or not we should love or hate our bodies.  Surely, many of us have these same tensions within our own bodies.  

The second half of class I would just like to explore ways we can use our bodies as prayer -- mostly through yoga.  Hopefully, people will take to it.  We'll see.

By the way, if any one would like to sponsor me, the money will be donated to Outreach International.

Winter Park snow shoeing

this is where Jeff is put up when he works at the Winter Park clinic.  Pretty nice huh?

big sunglasses are SO hot right now

well, hello there

well, hello there.

(i'm skipping the apologies for not writing in awhile)

I'm in Winter Park for the week.  Jeff has been working in the clinic relocating dislocations and stiching up chins.  I've been working on my thesis (which is coming along swimmingly by the way).  Pretty soon, Jeff will have four days off so we plan on skiing, snowshoeing, tubing and-- when we don't feel like freezing anymore-- sitting at coffee shops for hours at a time.  I'm excited.

Today I decided to work from the condo so I'm hanging out in my pajamas snuggled under a blanket on the couch.  I'm looking out of the sliding doors to the evergreens and mountains of snow and alternating my drinks of coffee and orange juice. (yes, i have a cold).

That's about it.  I have lots to write about because I've been thinking about the spiritual practice of eating lately.  But I'll leave that for another day...when I'm feeling a bit more loquacious.  Until then, I just wanted to say hello and get myself back into the blogging mode.

good food over our christmas break

living off the land

ahhh....

it looks as if I'm out of the Christmas dinner coma.  I've recharged my phone (I've barely touched it since we left for our 17 hour road trip to Houston) and my fingers are slowly starting to familiarize themselves with the keyboard.  It's funny how it's so easy for me to forget about my reality via technology for awhile.  I'm slowly getting more into the crazy world of gadgets and internet (and I admit -- it's fun and much easier to keep in touch) but I've never been obsessed with it.  I get that from my dad.  He's been joking more and more about leaving his international engineering job and just living off "the land."  And I completely take him seriously.  He has 42 acres about an hour and a half west of Houston where wild hogs and turkeys, deer rut around.  He has two ponds where he's caught a good size bass (it was mighty tasty.)  Of course, he could also drive his Ford truck into town and go to the local buffet restaurant where he could get all the buttered lima beans and apple pie he could get his hands on.  He grew up on a farm in Alabama (my great grandparents were sharecroppers-- but that's another story, another blog) and the farmer in him never really left.  He's lived in far away and exotic places like Saudi Arabia, Philippines, Russia, Korea and traveled all over the world in between.  He's grown to love the finer things of life -- russian vodka, fine dining, stylish clothing but after all that, dad has always appreciated nature, the spirit of it, all that it has to offer....and I admire him for that.  

our christmas menu

My mom, sister and I are at the beginning stages of planning the Christmas menu.  We were emailing back and forth so that my mom can get the first of many grocery store treks out of the way.  Visions of cranberry scones, and warm cereals, soups and pork loins were dancing in my head.  I spent about twenty minutes, typing as fast as I could -- taking advantage of "free" (my mom has a less limited budget than me) food to do my heart's (and stomach's) desire.

Meanwhile, my sister had emailed a link to some pictures from a book called Hungry Planet: What the world eats.  It was fascinating to see the pictures of families standing behind their week's supply of food.  They (and their food) came from Germany, Poland, China, Ecuador, Mexico, Egypt....  The tomatoes and squashes and breads piled up in red, orange, green and yellow mounds, creating little topographic models of their home landscapes.  (Isn't it funny how much our food looks like our land from afar?)  Unfortunately, the American family stood behind mounds of plastic and cardboard more than fruits and veggies.  The food is probably made from the same stuff as the packaging...and tastes the same too.  What's just as bad, was the family from Chad who sat behind wrinkled cucumbers and a bit of casava flour.  

Funny --- isn't it.  Both the American and Chad families....I'm equally heartbroken for.  It's impossible to compare the injustices really...  One group has all the choice in the world...and chooses to eat chemicals and sugars and food coloring.  The other family doesn't have much power at all in their food decisions.  These families, couldn't have more different life circumstances-- but I truly believe, that both affect the other.  The reason that the Chad family eats so little has something to do with the fact that the American family eats at Burger King, Pizza Hut, Crispy Cream, and when they do sit down to eat, it's Macaroni and Cheese or some sort of robo chicken that never stepped a foot on the ground and was shot up with crazy growth hormones.  Americans (6% of the world's population) use up 30% of the world's resources.  For some reason, Americans don't realize that the world has a limited amount of "stuff".  Limited means that after we take all that we need and want, the rest of the world has to fight over the rest.  Some people win those fights...other people lose.  It's obvious that the Chad family is losing.  Surely, we can do something about this.