A New Thanksgiving (continued from part 1)
Enjoying that turkey? Tyson Foods Inc., Perdue Farms Inc., Pilgrim's Pride Corp., and Sanderson Farms Inc. were recently named in an NBC News article on how poultry workers in their plants "are routinely denied basic needs such as bathroom breaks to the point of being forced to wear diapers while on the line, a new report claims."
Also, due to corporate reliance on artificial insemination to breed turkeys, modern turkeys have gotten so large the many of them cannot even walk; they can barley stand upright!
And in the frenzied days before Thanksgiving, it is likely that the poultry worker who prepared your turkey to be ready for the supermarket went 50 days without a day off. These factories are some of the most dangerous places in the country to work, and "poultry processing plants are located in largely rural areas where they seek to hire the nation’s most vulnerable workers. Half of the workers are women, and most are minorities — many immigrants and newly resettled refugees. The industry is widely known to have high turnover — in some plants reaching 100 percent a year — because the work is so physically demanding and the conditions so harsh. There is no paid sick leave in most of these plants. If workers can’t go in because of a work-related illness, they are given points; after accumulating too many, they are fired. "
Enjoying those cranberries? Migrant seasonal farm workers (MSFW) probably picked them, especially if you live in New Jersey, according to this state study which also notes how vulnerable they are to oppression.
Perhaps we can have more legislation guaranteeing access to fresh, affordable and healthy food as a human right.
Perhaps curriculum and museum and television programs should teach children and adults about how food ends up on our table and what justice looks like at every stage from point A to point B.
A New Communion
This has relevance for the Christian practice of communion.
"The holiest things in our faith come from the people who we don't even want here". ~ Dr. Claudio Carvalhaes, minister, theologian, liturgist and artist, on communion in the context of modern globalization and immigration
Communion bread requires Latin American immigrants, as they harvest the wheat for it, as does communion wine!
A New Sukkot
Perhaps America needs to move to what I have variously heard as "African time," "Indian (Native American) time," "Arab time," "Colored People (African-American) time"- people linger in conversations longer and social capital is built, at the expense of promptness. Perhaps America just needs to listen more, to show curiosity, to be the first one to open up in conversation. Hospitality isn't simply letting someone into your home, it's a matter of giving people your attention. If you let someone into your home, yet ignore them, that's not hospitality but insult. Likewise, you can be on the street and engage a homeless person on a human level- that's the true threshold of hospitality being crossed, not the literal threshold of your front door. Each of us can be a living tabernacle.
To make Sukkot democratic this year, I decided to text my friend Elaina about sharing a meal with homeless under scaffolding, because the scaffolding reminded me of the makeshift tabernacles / booths / tents that mark the Jewish celebration of Sukkot, a reminder of when they were wandering in the desert, a nomadic people who had to depend upon the shelter of God's clouds and the food of God's manna in order to survive (likewise, Elaina contacted me because she was organizing to care for the homeless for Thanksgiving).
For Sukkot, Jews are to eat one meal at least out of the seven in their makeshift outdoor tent. Every night I went out, I had already eaten dinner, but as I handed the food to the people who were homeless, I realized that by speaking to and humanizing them, that was my meal. I wanted to cross the threshold from stranger to intimate through conversation, about their lives or about God or politics, the same way that a meal is an intimate experience. Each Sukkot can be uniquely observed by each of us, though the common themes of intimacy, protection, sustenance, democracy, community, and a special care for the weak and oppressed make the most sense to me.
Poetry for a New Harvest
We in America may have, for the most part (this isn't true for everyone) lost our connection to the harvest. Yet poets like Kahlil Gibran's imagery of harvest however speaks to deep ancient part in us. Also, part of devaluation of food is devaluation of earth and the divine feminine.
Part of the problem is also the disposability of products that comes from mass production. Gibran incites us to work in such a way that we can stamp our soul onto our work:
You have been told also life is darkness, and in your weariness you echo what was said by the weary.
And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge,
And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge,
And all knowledge is vain save when there is work,
And all work is empty save when there is love;
And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.
And what is it to work with love?
It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.
It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.
It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.
It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit,
And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you and watching.
On the dignity of work:
Often have I heard you say, as if speaking in sleep, "he who works in marble, and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone, is a nobler than he who ploughs the soil.
And he who seizes the rainbow to lay it on a cloth in the likeness of man, is more than he who makes the sandals for our feet."
But I say, not in sleep but in the over-wakefulness of noontide, that the wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of all the blades of grass;
And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving.
Work is love made visible.
And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man's hunger.
On Eating and Drinking
Then an old man, a keeper of an inn, said, "Speak to us of Eating and Drinking."
And he said:
Would that you could live on the fragrance of the earth, and like an air plant be sustained by the light.
But since you must kill to eat, and rob the young of its mother's milk to quench your thirst, let it then be an act of worship,
And let your board stand an altar on which the pure and the innocent of forest and plain are sacrificed for that which is purer and still more innocent in many.
When you kill a beast say to him in your heart,
"By the same power that slays you, I to am slain; and I too shall be consumed.
For the law that delivered you into my hand shall deliver me into a mightier hand.
Your blood and my blood is naught but the sap that feeds the tree of heaven." And when you crush an apple with your teeth, say to it in your heart,
"Your seeds shall live in my body,
And the buds of your tomorrow shall blossom in my heart,
And your fragrance shall be my breath, And together we shall rejoice through all the seasons."
And in the autumn, when you gather the grapes of your vineyard for the winepress, say in you heart, "I to am a vineyard, and my fruit shall be gathered for the winepress,
And like new wine I shall be kept in eternal vessels."
And in winter, when you draw the wine, let there be in your heart a song for each cup;
And let there be in the song a remembrance for the autumn days, and for the vineyard, and for the winepress.
On Buying & Selling
And a merchant said, "Speak to us of Buying and Selling."
And he answered and said:
To you the earth yields her fruit, and you shall not want if you but know how to fill your hands.
It is in exchanging the gifts of the earth that you shall find abundance and be satisfied.
Yet unless the exchange be in love and kindly justice, it will but lead some to greed and others to hunger.
When in the market place you toilers of the sea and fields and vineyards meet the weavers and the potters and the gatherers of spices,
- Invoke then the master spirit of the earth, to come into your midst and sanctify the scales and the reckoning that weighs value against value.
And suffer not the barren-handed to take part in your transactions, who would sell their words for your labour.
To such men you should say,
"Come with us to the field, or go with our brothers to the sea and cast your net; For the land and the sea shall be bountiful to you even as to us."
And if there come the singers and the dancers and the flute players, - buy of their gifts also.
For they too are gatherers of fruit and frankincense, and that which they bring, though fashioned of dreams, is raiment and food for your soul.
And before you leave the marketplace, see that no one has gone his way with empty hands.
For the master spirit of the earth shall not sleep peacefully upon the wind till the needs of the least of you are satisfied.
....
May we all demand more time off to bring about the satisfaction of every soul on earth. Nobody will be free until we are all free.
No comments:
Post a Comment