The Nobel Peace Prize and Thanksgiving

There is a term, "Freshman Fifteen" (7 kg) to describe the tendency for first year university and college students to put on weight during the first year of post-secondary education. Well, many of us seem to have made a trip back to the days of our youth during these past six months packing on the puddin' thanks to the pandemic. Decreased mobility, varying degrees of anxiety, and the craving for what we like to describe as comfort food (Covid chips as an example) has meant that our clothes have mysteriously shrunk. While we may lament the encouragement  to keep our Thanksgiving gatherings small this year, doing so may actually be a good thing if we're hoping to avoid overindulgence. 

It may not occur to us that the turmoil of our world has resulted in the opposite effect for tens of millions, perhaps hundreds of millions of people who struggle with food insecurity and even starvation. Cutting people off from a stable food supply is actually a tactic of conflict and war, as is the case in countries such as Yemen.

How appropriate that in the week leading to Thanksgiving, which in both Canada and the United States is associated with the sharing of abundance by Indigenous peoples with European settlers who were facing starvation, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the World Food Program "for its efforts to combat hunger, for its contribution to bettering conditions for peace in conflict-affected areas and for acting as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict."

In 2019 WFP assisted more than 100 million people in 88 countries around the planet, a staggering number. To help us imagine the numbers, this represents nearly three times the population of Canada. While conflict is a key factor in food insecurity, the pandemic is also disrupting supply chains and production in many places and the United Church of Canada has invited us to offer financially support its initiatives to address this reality. 

We can also be aware on this Thanksgiving weekend that many people in this country are going hungry because of reduced incomes or lost employment. The Daily Bread organization in Toronto has experienced an increase from 15,000 to 20,000 visits a day at member food banks. In our area, food and meal programs continue to be busy, including the lunch programs at Trenton UC and Bridge St. UC. 

Those of us who are able to attend worship today will likely join with others in a mask-muffled recitation of the Lord's Prayer, which includes the phrase "give us this day our daily bread." If we are truly grateful we will consider how to share our abundance with others, close at hand and around the planet.