Rare Moments of Brilliance

Once in a while, snippets of perfect phrasing fall out of my mouth or out of some corner in my brain, and since the limits of my brain would probably never again find that phrasing in quite the same way,  I try to write things down immediately. Long story short, from conversations over the past few days, here are a few phrases I would like to share with you.

Think big picture and do small picture. So the food system in our country is really messed up. I challenge you to think about how healthier food in this country is more expensive, how we approach food aid, how we approach animal and environmental rights, how our government prioritizes certain practices over others through subsidies, and how our demand and consumption affect other countries, as well as play a role in forced migration. From those thoughts, what can you do? Start a community garden? Talk to your representative about the Farm Bill, food stamps, and subsidies? Ask your uncle who farms what changes he'd like to see? What can you do right at home that connects with the big picture?

Start small but do it on a big scale -- it will make a huge impact. You can start doing "Meatless Mondays" by yourself to reduce your own environmental impact, but you can also do it with a friend or a few, or your community. Even if you do not get a huge number of people to do it, you will at least get a huge number of people involved in the conversation. 

Never stop being church. And because "church" itself is such a loaded word, what I mean by that is never stop being forgiveness, grace, compassion, community care, and love. To others, and possibly harder, to yourself. I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again, only when you are filled can you overflow to others. And that should happen not just when you take the time out of your day or week to intentionally practice the rituals of your belief system, but how you should live all the time.