I was pulling into Macy’s yesterday afternoon when a story came on NPR about the food supply, or more accurately the lack thereof, in North Korea. When I think of North Korea, I think of world security, nuclear weapons and a hostile dictator–but I’ve never thought of starvation. Until now.
“I saw one family, a couple with two kids, who committed suicide. Life was too hard, and they had nothing to sell in their house. They made rice porridge, and added rat poison,” he recalls. “White rice is very precious, so the kids ate a lot. They died after 30 minutes. Then the parents ate. The whole family died.”
I sat in a parking place, preparing to go into Macy’s and buy a pricey gift for someone who doesn’t need it, and my stomach flipped over. I started thinking about the things I was worrying about. A missing cell phone that I hardly ever use. The noise the car was making.
Eating few enough calories to allow me to have gingerbread for dessert.
I don’t even know what hunger is.
When I was twenty weeks pregnant with Alex, I woke up on the floor of the bathtub, Christian bending over me. I had been on metformin (to treat polycystic ovaries) for two years, and it was a new enough treatment that there wasn’t an established protocol for how long into pregnancy to continue use. Well, now we knew. For the next six weeks, my body went crazy as it tried to return to regulating sugar on its own. I felt horrible all the time, and learned to dread low blood sugar to the point where I never allow myself to get very hungry–I grab a slice of cheese, or some carrots, or a cracker or two.
The process of slimming my caloric intake has made that more complicated, but I realize now I can’t tell the difference between “hungry” and “sugar imbalanced,” and I’m too scared of the second to risk the first.
So the voice coming out of the radio yesterday was like a mirror. I suddenly saw my family’s life, modest (even miserly) by cultural expectations, as wanton–our Thanksgiving feasts and Christmas cookies, the plethora of gifts growing under the tree, golf and scrapbooking. I thought of the five homeless men I’ve passed by lately because I was in the far lane, and the one to whom I gave a dollar. They’re all the face of Christ; how far does my responsibility extend? How do we strike a balance between enjoying the bounty we’ve been given and being wasteful, immorally profligate at the expense of others starving to death because we won’t simply give our excess to save them–because we think we need Thanksgiving feasts and new cars and acid-free scrapbooks?
The existence of poverty stretches so many fingers in so many directions, inserting uncertainty and questions into so many other issues. Half the population objects to genetically modified food, but the industry insists it’s necessary to increase yields to feed the world–that natural and organic is a path to world starvation. Is that true? Or is the real reason we need those kinds of high yields the fact that we’re a nation of gluttons? We ate at the Olive Garden on Sunday, and I scoured the menu for calorie counts ahead of time. You could easily–easily–consume 2500 calories in one meal, and not even be aware you’d done it. I ate half an entree, two fried zucchini medallions, one bowl of salad, and half a breadstick, and I consumed over 750. And was still hungry, mind you.
Last night, our Advent calendar activity was to take coffee and cereal to a local homeless shelter. It was the first really cold night of the year, and the place was full. The director invited us to stay and visit a while, but we were too uncomfortable. In the car on the way home, we talked about it. We need to do that, I said. We need to spend time with them, not just sail in like benevolent aristocrats and drop our tiny donation and escape. There were men in that room I recognize after three years of Advent visits.
What is the answer to these conundrums? I’m not claiming an answer–I’m only struggling with the questions. What is the Gospel-driven response to poverty, to hunger around the world? How far does my responsibility and yours extend? Are any of us meeting it, or are we all hoarding most of what was given to us to ease others’ suffering? Where is the line between saving to prepare a stable future for us and our children, and simply being greedy by not passing on what we aren’t using to those who have nothing?
Kathleen M. Basi 
It is tough. We do have far more than we need and then at this time of the year we go all out buying even more. On the other hand, when they raised the tax on yachts and made them more expensive, it not only hurt those who were now not quite rich enough to afford them, but also those who made them (and were not rich at all). How much of the famine problem is a lack of supply; now much is a deliberate effort not to feed certain people, and how much of it is lack of money to get the food where the people are?
“I ate half an entree, two fried zucchini medallions, one bowl of salad, and half a breadstick, and I consumed over 750. And was still hungry, mind you.” Aw man. That would be me too.
Hard questions. Good post!
very, very well written, from your heart to my heart
I think about things like this all the time when I hear things such as a hair salon for American Girl Dolls in America. Seriously… we pay to get a doll a haircut when people can’t eat! Then I always have to put myself in check and think about how my family lives with excess as well. The question is how to find balance… Our girl scout troop is stuffing buddy packs next Saturday at a kids volunteer experience. You all are welcome to join. (I am already perplexed about being snack volunteer for this event. Seems like a good time to maybe skip a snack. Sometimes being a thinker is a pain!)
Ever so slowly, with influence in every aspect of N. American living, we truly have become the Nero’s fiddling while Rome burns. In mind, body and spirit.
What do we do? Exactly what you are doing, I believe. Become aware, take action in ways that are in front of us and talk/write about it.
You’ve inspired me – in many ways with this article. See? It works!
You have inspired me too. Thanks.
America’s best chance to affect the misery in N. Korea was in 1953.
I guessed wrong that the famine sculpture was Ukrainian. It reminds of Kaethe Kollwitz’ work, in which hunger figures prominently.
very heartwarming and inspiring kathleen
I agree with Kkollwitz on Korea in 1953. The people were starving then and starve now because of a communist government and the Kim dictatorship. The aid we sent goes into the pockets of the bureaucrats and not to the people. Satellite photos indicate something like a quarter million people in one concentration camp where people are starving. How they got to the camps is another story.
Now about us. God put us here in this time and place for our salvation and that of others. You’re doing the right thing by teaching your kids to be giving and by not living extravagantly. You’re raising them in a God-centered family. Who knows what God has planned for them for the good of others? They will be ready, though because you are doing His will.
Feeling guilty and starving yourself and your kids won’t make anybody less hungry elsewhere. Just keep on doing God’s will as you are and keep praying for the poor and hungry. His will is difficult enough as He sands off our rough edges through family life. The problem of hunger is so big only God can fix it. And if we are struck to the heart by these awful realities, it’s because we have the gift of compassion and truly see others as our neighbor, for which we can glorify God and renew our practices of self-denial that no one sees but Him.
Wow. I am inspired… and convicted. Thank you.
Great thinking, inspiring post. What can we do? We can, personally, stop wasting what we have. We can cut out giving expensive or even inexpensive gifts no one needs and take that small amount of cash and give it to 4 star charities that work in exactly that area – poverty and hunger. But one suggestion.
I second Stephanie’s Dec 14th comment. Add fish, avocados, & nuts. And yes you have to GIVE UP THE BREAD. Also, be sure you consume high fiber foods that make it to the large intestine which is where the satisfaction hormones are released when the food reaches that part of the digestive system. THAT’S KEY!!