I visited the New Mexico monastery called Christ in the Desert last November. It is in a stunningly beautiful location. The catch is that it is more than a hundred kilometres from Santa Fe and twenty kilometres in a dirt road from the highway. The Benedictine brothers established this remote Christian community about forty five years ago and Thomas Merton declared it the perfect monastic chapel while painter Georgia O'Keeffe attended worship there from time to time despite being an agnostic.
While there I saw the monastic kitchen and on the wall was a ceramic hanging depicting Jesus cooking up a storm. Around him are chili peppers and onions and tomatoes. In the gospels Jesus chows down with outcasts and riff-raff on a regular basis and explains the mystery of his death and resurrection during a meal. We probably never wonder whether he actually cooked those meals.
Now, those tomatoes. Don't eat them if they come from the States! Salmonella! Most of our imported tomatoes are probably just fine, but lots of people south of the border have ended up sick because of tomatoes grown and processed in factory farms. Over the last couple of years lettuce, and spinach and bean sprouts and vegetable juice have caused illness. Why? How can the high volume of produce be properly cleaned in mass production. Of course a lot of this stuff travels great distances in plastic bags. With the US we enjoy the cheapest food in the world (about 10% of income, including meals out) but there are other costs to the cheap produce.
Thanks to the St. Paul's administrator, Helen, and her husband, Brian, we get our Spring tomatoes from a local greenhouse. They are juicy, succulent fruit instead of the bullet-proof jobs we get from California. We have also enjoyed asparagus and cucumbers from the same source.
With rising fuel prices imported food will become more expensive. This and safety issues may push us to consider the importance of local food. We are now enjoying lettuce from our own garden and spinach and peas are in the offing. The tomatoes are just a future promise at the moment.
Is what we eat and how we eat a spiritual issue?
While there I saw the monastic kitchen and on the wall was a ceramic hanging depicting Jesus cooking up a storm. Around him are chili peppers and onions and tomatoes. In the gospels Jesus chows down with outcasts and riff-raff on a regular basis and explains the mystery of his death and resurrection during a meal. We probably never wonder whether he actually cooked those meals.
Now, those tomatoes. Don't eat them if they come from the States! Salmonella! Most of our imported tomatoes are probably just fine, but lots of people south of the border have ended up sick because of tomatoes grown and processed in factory farms. Over the last couple of years lettuce, and spinach and bean sprouts and vegetable juice have caused illness. Why? How can the high volume of produce be properly cleaned in mass production. Of course a lot of this stuff travels great distances in plastic bags. With the US we enjoy the cheapest food in the world (about 10% of income, including meals out) but there are other costs to the cheap produce.
Thanks to the St. Paul's administrator, Helen, and her husband, Brian, we get our Spring tomatoes from a local greenhouse. They are juicy, succulent fruit instead of the bullet-proof jobs we get from California. We have also enjoyed asparagus and cucumbers from the same source.
With rising fuel prices imported food will become more expensive. This and safety issues may push us to consider the importance of local food. We are now enjoying lettuce from our own garden and spinach and peas are in the offing. The tomatoes are just a future promise at the moment.
Is what we eat and how we eat a spiritual issue?
2 comments:
What's a blog without using Oprah's name. Oprah is now on a 21 day cleanse. This was spurred on by a book she read called Quantum Wellness by Kathy Freston. This is an excerpt from Oprah's blog.....
But what she talks about in her book is a higher level of consciousness. She speaks of "spiritual integrity." How can you say you're trying to spiritually evolve, without even a thought about what happens to the animals whose lives are sacrificed in the name of gluttony?
It's a big radical (in MY eyes) however an interesting journey.
Yah, I am doing much musing about this one these days. The author of The Ominvore's Dilemma buys a calf and follows it through the process which ends on the plate. It is disturbing, reminiscent of concentration camps. Why is it wrong to do this to humans but not to animals. My vegetarian kids would say Amen.
Smaller portions, more vegetarian meals? Kudos to Oprah
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