Spiritually Speaking -- It's Easter!

"See, I give you every seed-bearing plant all over the earth  and every tree tthat has seed-bearing fruit on it to be your food; and to all the animals of the land, alll the birds of the air, and all the living creatures that crawl on the ground, I give all the green plants for food."  And so  it happened.  God looked at everything he had made, and he found it very good." (Genesis 1:30)

In my religious tradition, we hear this Scripture passage, along  with several others, every year at the beginning of the long vigil service the evening before Easter.  We sit in the dark and listen to a recounting of salvation history for Christians, beginning with this wonderful creation narrative from the book  of Genesis.

I guess that because I think alot anyway about the amounts and quality of foods I eat, I am particularly moved each year by the exerpt above.  And  it seems to me that even if I weren't immersed in Christianity, that I could as well ponder on the thought that God, or the Universe, or the big bang, or from whence ever we humans began living on this planet, saw to it from the beginning that there would be plenty of rich nutricious food to feed us, to maintain our well-being, to encourage us to learn and grow and become the magnificent creatures we are intended to be.

All the life-giving vitamins, minerals, and enzymes were given to us in abundance from the beginning.  We don't have to kill animals for food. We don't have to box, jar, pasteurize, can, or wrap any of it.  Just pick it off the tree and enjoy! Fabulous!

Alleluia!  Alleluia!  Alleluia!

The Gifts of a Friendship that Just Keeps Growing



 Living healthy, simple, natural and justly are all one thing. – Socrates

My good and long-time friend Kathleen Erickson visited this weekend.  She and I worked on some social justice projects years ago, and spent some time listening to each other "discern" as we transitioned into new avocations.  She ended up spending 18 years on the  US/Mexico border leading "immersion" experiences, creating an International Cultural Center for Women, and taught English to Spanish speaking people.  I, on the other hand made my way into chaplaincy, and then to pastoral care among persons with mental illness and another academic degree. We kept in touch over the years, and this weekend she came 300 miles to do a presentation at my parish on immigration, her current passion, and a workshop called Awakening the Dreamer, which invites people to look at their surroundings with more compassinate vision and then make changes that yeild a more environmentally sustainable , spiritually fulfilling, socially just presence on the planet.  Both events were a big hit.

What is relevant to my current passion of encouraging people to add more raw and living foods into their diets, however, is the wonderful way we spent the weekend sharing and learning from each other.  I fed Kathleen lots of raw food, which she graciously accepted, and I listened to and  absorbed much of what she was presenting, particularly the "care for the environment" presentation. She vowed to renew her efforts to eat more raw and living foods regularly, and I vowed to be more creative in my efforts of recycling and conserving water and energy.  Where we both agree and can embrace change from our respective places at the moment is in the reminder that when we make a good choice with food--meaning eating raw and living foods, we are, in fact, making a good move for the planet which we habitate.  That is, when we improve our nutrition, we are building that environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling, socially just human presence on the planet.

It was a rich, rich weekend on many levels!  For more information on Awakening  the Dreamer, which I heartily recommend, go to awakeningthedreamer.com and look around the website.  And, if you're interested, find someone who can make the presentation to your favorite group. Meanwhile....Live well ~ ~ Eat Raw!

A Great Afternoon at the Columbia Library

The Columbia Raw Food Feasters meetup group met today for its monthly potluck.  We held this special meeting at the library and invited Dr. John Ikerd, professor emiritus at MU to speak about agriculture sustainability, the American food system, the changing health patterns of Americans, and mostly, the great need we have for reform in these areas.  We invited the public, which is a new outreach effort for our group, which usually has between 25 and 35 members and guests attend each month.  We were very gratified to have 98 in attendance this afternoon.  The talk was terrific, as we knew it would be, the conversation with the speaker which followed was enlightening, and the raw food that the Columbia Raw Food Feasters brought to share was delicious, nutritious, and quite well received.  We'll hope that some folks who were experiencing Raw Food for the first time will add more of it to their diets, and visit us soon at one of our potlucks!