Over the week of March 3-7, some members of the Canadian Foodgrains Bank staff and board will be fasting for one day about climate change and hunger.
They are joining in solidarity with Yeb Saño, lead United Nations climate change negotiator from the Philippines. Saño spoke passionately to the UN assembly about the effects of climate change on his country in the immediate aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan. For more information on the Foodgrains Bank fast and to get involved, click here.
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The words and actions of Yeb Saño, leader of the Philippine delegation to the 2013 UN Climate Change meetings in Warsaw, have inspired many of us.
Sano recounted the devastation cause by Typhoon Haiyan in his homeland, and fasted for 13 days while the international community failed to reach any decisions of consequence in Warsaw.
This week marks the beginning of Lent, a time where we prepare to engage in the themes of Easter, related to the death and resurrection of Jesus. It is a fitting time to also express our concern about global climate change.
On Friday, March 3, I will be fasting and praying in solidarity with Sano, and other people in Canada and around the world.
My fast will last less than twenty-four hours. The temporary experience of fatigue and weakness will remind me of the condition of other people who are desperate to find nourishment for their bodies.
We have chosen this Lenten activity as a way to express our concern about global climate change and to express repentance for our participation in disproportionately pumping carbon into the atmosphere which sustains our lives.
We collectively recognize that the way we live adversely impacts the safety and food security of people around the world.
My participation in this fast signifies an act of protest against the excesses of the culture in which I participate, a statement of personal remorse, and a way of expressing solidarity with those who suffer from chronic hunger. Allow me to go a bit further in unpacking this:
- Act of protest against the excesses of our culture: North Americans in general can be characterized as consumers and individualists. Our sense of personal rights and demands often overcomes our responsibility to practice stewardship and to protect the creation that we hold in trust for the next generations. Our fast is a symbolic gesture of recognition that we have the potential to contribute to the common good by consuming less products and resources.
- Statement of personal remorse: The heart can be used metaphorically as the place where women and men process rational thoughts, deep emotions, and the leading of God’s Spirit. The heart is where values are formed and important decisions are made. I want to use time on Friday to do some heart work. I want to give space for remorse about our lack of discernment in regard to the importance of this time in history and the role of those who live in favored circumstances. I hope that such contrition will lead to decisions about concrete actions for the common good that I can practice during the remainder of Lent and beyond Easter, as we live with the hope of the resurrection.
- Solidarity with those who suffer from chronic hunger: Hunger statistics haunt me. Statistically, almost a billion people around the world are chronically undernourished and hungry, although I think the actual numbers are higher because the counting is skewed. (The hunger count only begins after twelve months in which a person has consumed fewer calories daily than is required by someone with a sedentary lifestyle.)
At the Foodgrains Bank, we attend to the saying of Jesus that when we feed the hungry, we discover that we are giving him food (Matthew 25).
This means that we find him present among those who have been pushed to the margins. These are the people for whom the global economy does not work.
Our fast on Friday, March 3 is one way to move to the margins in order to join our Lord among the poor during the season of Lent.
