Enough Food If ...

Once again the sun shone brightly on us.  Last Saturday we were on College Green in Bristol.  This Saturday it was Hyde Park in London.  Two quite different events but united in their subject matter - food.  The first involved feeding 5000 people with food destined for landfill, the second demanding that the G8 take action to ensure that no one goes bed hungry.

 

For more information about this Enough Food If ... campaign click here.

Christian Aid Week

If someone knocks on your door to collect the envelope left earlier in the week, please be generous.

'Giving up' v 'Taking up' for Lent

It is the custom, and not just in religious circles, to 'give up' something for Lent. Based on Jesus' 40 day fast in the wilderness there is undoubtedly something to be said for foregoing the physical in pursuit of the spiritual. However it can be frustrating and often leaves you feeling smug, if you've managed, or disheartened, if you haven't.

The CSMV nuns who ran St Mary's School in Pune encouraged us to 'take up' something for Lent instead. I remember sewing a romper suit for a child in their orphanage. It required time and effort on my part and made a material difference to someone's life. Besides which, positive actions are always more satisfying than negative ones.

In previous years I have followed, albeit sporadically, the Love Life Live Lent booklets produced by the Church of England, which encouraged readers to engage in a variety of random acts of kindness etc. I couldn't find any sign of these booklets this year so I turned to Christian Aid, who have an excellent project entitled Count Your Blessings. Every day you are given a statistic relating to world poverty followed by an appropriate action to take. For example, today I have learned that wasted food costs the average family £420 a year. I have then been asked to give 42p for each type of food I bin this week. By the time I reach Easter Sunday I shall not only be more aware of the plight of those less fortunate than myself, but I shall also have a jarful of coins to put towards making our world a better place for everyone.

Old habits die hard though, and I have also pledged to give up biscuits and cakes between meals.

Christian Aid

Last week was Christian Aid Week. I've collected door to door for many years now, in Sunningdale, London and Bristol, and I can honestly say that I've always enjoyed doing so. In Bristol I cover the same road every year and have grown to know and be recognised by its residents. No matter how many visits I make, there are inevitably some doors that are never opened. However whenever they are, the welcome has, until this year, been generally friendly and rewarding. There were always a few people who refused to donate, but they numbered no more than a handful and only one or two of them were rude.

This year I noticed a distinct difference. Almost a quarter of the road refused to give anything at all. That's almost a quarter of the total population, not just of those who answered their doors. A few of them claimed to give to other charities, but the majority didn't give any reason, just that they did not want to give.

This saddened me. Firstly because after a fortnight of media coverage of the cyclone in Burma and the earthquake in China, they could not fail to be aware of the necessity of giving. Secondly because they were, almost without exception, young people. The older residents are remarkable. They have their envelopes filled and waiting by the front door and have even been known to cross the road to hand them to me, because they know they will be out, or in the back garden hanging up the washing, when I ring their bell.

Despite the credit crunch we have so much more than our fellow human beings in the developing world. That's at the best of times, let alone in times of crisis. If we are unwilling to put our hands in our pockets and place even a couple of coins, let alone a note, in a Christian Aid envelope, then we are indeed a very sorry lot.