Winds of Peace Foundation

Steve Sheppard | December 19, 2009

I accomplished a near-miracle during Thanksgiving week when, tempted by the opportunity to eat a great deal more turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, green beans and pie than I ought, I refrained.  I resisted the urge on my own behalf, but believe me, the temptation was there!  What food!  And I wasn’t compelled to run ten miles the next day to work off the extra calories.  My legs and back were grateful.

Food is so plentiful in our society that for most of us there is little thought given to how much we consume, where it comes from, how it’s produced, what’s in it, whether there will be more available, and perhaps most importantly, do we need all this?

It’s estimated that the average person needs about 2,500 calories every day for reasonably good health.  Of course, most of us consume a great many more than that every day, whether it’s Thanksgiving or a normal Tuesday.  Lots of us look for ways to cut back on the calories we take in daily, knowing that not only do we need require those extra calories, but that doing so is actually harmful to our health.  But we live in a culture of plenty and the temptations are always in front of us, and so hard to ignore.  

When we finally decide to push away from a great meal, having taken in  more than we need and perhaps even leaving a remainder on the plate, someone will inevitably remind us that there are starving children in the world.  It’s a reminder that often frustrates us: we know there are starving children in the world, but how do we expect to get that last piece of turkey or helping of corn all the way to Nicaragua or some other far-off place?  And how could this little bit of leftover make any difference?  It’s a conundrum that usually goes unanswered, because it is all too far away and complex.

But what if we could understand it in a different context?  What if we came to realize that there really is enough food, that the 2,500 calorie-counting that so many of us indulge in could be applied in a different way?  It goes something like this:

If we could combine all the food in the world, both grown and processed, and count it up in one place, we would have enough edible food to provide more than 3,500 calories per day to every current inhabitant of the earth.  We would have enough food to not only meet the minimum requirement for sustaining healthy life, but to actually exceed it!  If we could do this, each of us receiving enough calories each day to more than meet our needs (and even protect us from our own tendencies toward obesity) and in the process see that every other human’s caloric needs were also being exceeded, we would have an end to hunger-related death and disease, not to mention a host of other political and social conflicts.  Let’s start with this fact-set and do some imagining.

  Imagine that we have enough for everyone to eat and then some.  We know how to get the food to every person.  Starvation has become an historical concept.  We all visit the “food sites” each day for what we need and want.  The distribution of food is unexpectedly easy and satisfying, both nutritionally and emotionally.  And then, imagine that something goes awry.  Something in the distribution or “counting” process breaks down and you suddenly find yourself with 5,000 calories a day on your plate.  You had nothing to do with the error, nobody has noticed the  inequity, and so you say nothing and quietly enjoy the excess calories that you’ve been dealt.  You actually kind of enjoy saving some of the excess food for a late meal at night before bed.  You grow accustomed to the mistake until one day, as you arrive to receive your extra-large portion, you learn that there is an individual who unexplainably has missed out on his portion of food for the past weeks and has become quite ill because of the error.  The food administrators haven’t been able to discover the source of the error, and so can do nothing immediately to correct the shortage.  You learn of this as you walk from the kiosk where the 5,000 calories have been erroneously assigned to you.

What would you do?  When you have enough, when you are healthy and providing plenty for your family, and then learn that another has become ill due to the excess amount that you have been receiving, what would you do?  Will it be enough to say that it’s too difficult to correct the error?  Is it acceptable to thank the fates for your good luck?  Are you free and clear since it wasn’t your error to begin with?  Do you have any responsibility for the individual who faces starvation due to the extra food that you have received?  What would you do?

As we push away from the table of plenty and roll our eyes at the reminder of starving human beings because it’s just such a big problem, maybe it’s time for an after-dinner stroll.  Perhaps a short walk under the early evening moonlight will remind us that we have walked up there on the moon, that we conquered with resources and will and creativity a frontier that was millions of miles away, not even of this earth.

                                                    

Category: Reflections | No Comments »
Tags:

Steve Sheppard | December 13, 2009

I remember watching a World War II film that included a concentration camp scene wherein a Nazi commander was hosting a civilian visitor to the camp.  The commander and his guest were sitting outdoors, on a veranda of sorts, enjoying refreshments and a view of the nearby woods where they would not be offended by the grim realities inside the camp.  As the two relaxed with food and wine, a prisoner detail was being marched back into camp, presumably after a long day of physical labor.  Haggard, wasted and near death, the prisoners stole furtive glances at the two men enjoying their late-day break.  In return, the commander, noticing their uninvited looks, began tossing scraps of food to his two dogs, his disdain for these captives and their condition plainly etched in his face.  As if their hunger was not painful enough, this waste of food in their presence represented a horrible insult intended to hurt their souls as well as their bodies.  For me, the scene portrayed an evil that has never left my memory.

I remember thinking to myself, how could the guest or even the other guards have stood by and let this happen?  How could anyone have tolerated these injustices and degradations of humanity?  I used to think, if I had been there, I would have attacked that commander and thrown the food over the barbed-wire fence in order for the prisoners to have had at least a moment’s satisfaction.  Boys often imagine themselves doing such heroic things as this, and I find myself wondering whatever happened to such inclinations to heroism?  Because today, the same degradations, inhumanities and even insults are part of our everyday lives.  Yes, yours and mine.

What would you do?  What if you are out for dinner on a pleasant Sunday evening, at an outdoor cafe near the lake that you particularly enjoy.  It’s been one of those perfect summer days, where you are  attuned to all the sounds of nature surrounding you and you are aware of how its music soothes you.   Your table faces the lake; a walking path is just beyond the outdoor patio and follows the shoreline.  Your meal is done, a spread of food and condiments befitting this luxurious setting.  You have joked about how much you have eaten and the need for a “doggy bag” to take the rest of the food home.

You are startled by the sound of rustling shrubbery off to your side.  From a wooded area a man wanders onto the walking path, glancing at you and the other diners.  He appears disheveled and disoriented and to your growing discomfort he is approaching your table.  You think about summoning the waiter but before you can spot him, the stranger speaks.  “Excuse me.  I’m sorry for intruding.  But I see that you have finished eating your supper, and I wondered whether you might be willing to share your leftovers with me.  I’ve been without work and a place to stay and I’m very hungry.” 

To begin with, you’re a little irritated at the intrusion and the awkwardness of it.  You’ve simply wanted to enjoy a beautiful evening and a fine meal, and now this stranger has appeared.  And yes, you’ve finished with your meal but the idea of giving someone your leftover scraps doesn’t seem quite right.  Maybe you’ve even thought about these leftovers as part of tomorrow’s lunch.  In any case, the waiter and the maitre d’ are nowhere to be seen, the man and the food are before you, and all you can think of is how does this kind of thing always happen to me?  What would you do?

It’s a sobering and downright shameful fact that in the U.S. we throw away nearly 40% of our food.  Whether disposed of as garbage from our tables, unused in warehouses and destroyed, kept from  markets due to economic reasons, or otherwise rendered unusable, our food waste could feed the world.  While 25,000 human beings die each day from hunger and hunger-related disease, we discard enough food to have saved most of them.  It is insanity and insult that calls to mind the actions of that camp commander who I wanted to throttle! 

The solutions may not be as easy as throwing scraps to a hungry man at the table, but our outrage ought to be no less than what we feel from the movies….

Category: Reflections | No Comments »
Tags:

Steve Sheppard | December 6, 2009

The idea of thousands of human beings dying each day from hunger and hunger-related diseases is beyond my immediate comprehension.   The numbers are too big and the problem seemingly too immense to spend much time contemplating.  Sometimes thinking about the issue of hunger in our world is better done in relation to things in our lives that are more familiar to us. 

So drawing upon a talk that I heard the other day, I decided to pose the following “What If?” scenario to think about.  Disregard the plausibility or lack of technical accuracy; just imagine.

What if, on this past Sunday as millions of travelers began making their way back home after the Thanksgiving feast, a crisis emerged in our air traffic system.  Without controllers’ ability to adequately see it coming, a “glitch” in the system quite suddenly threatened the air safety of all the aircraft currently en route to their destinations.  After repeated attempts nation-wide to fix the problem, the  air control management reports that there is nothing that can be done, and among the hundreds of flights in the air, some are bound to crash, either because they have no flight visibility or because they cannot be cleared to land anywhere before fuel is used up or they suffer mid-air collision.  In fact, the sobering estimate is that thousands may die, that 25,000 people will perish on this day of unprecedented loss.

What would you do?  What would WE do?  Surely, the country would spare no expense or effort in order to create a strategy that would carefully, methodically bring those planes down without tragedy.  No expenditure of resources would be spared.  (If we doubt that, all we need to do is look back a few months when the U.S. government was willing to pour hundreds of billions of dollars into an economic tragedy brought on not by an unintended “glitch” but by outright greed and malfeasance.)  In short, we would do anything to prevent the disaster, and if the government did not act quickly enough each of us would be on our cell phones, at our computers, or even out in the streets to protest and demand moral action.  We simply would not accept the pending death and destruction.

If the reaction I’ve described above is at all realistic, then why is it so difficult for us to react to the equivalent of 60 airliners a day crashing to earth, destroying lives and property and promise for the future?  If we can spend billions of dollars in this country alone to bail out mismanaged banks and fund  extravagant bonuses on Wall Street, how can we remain so unmoved?  Is this really who we are and what we are all about, or have we simply shielded ourselves from the enormity of the truth and grown afraid of the “disease” that might infect our hearts if we acknowledge who we have become?

Is the problem of hunger too big?  I guess the answer is dependent upon our priorities.  But 60 airliners are in the air today, destined to crash to the earth, and those aboard wonder how important that is to you and me waiting below.  What would you do?

Category: Reflections | No Comments »
Tags: