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ies. The assistants not only answer questions, they also “talk to people, connect, give them space when it’s needed or give them words of encour- agement,” Neale said. That’s for the volunteers’ sake as much as it is for the guests. “Volun- teers become transformed by learn- ing that poverty and hunger aren’t always about drug problems or bad relationships—that they can also come from just a simple problem that snowballed, a medical condition or a car accident,” she said. “That touches the hearts of volunteers, who then become transformed in


their understanding of what poverty is in our country.”


Stewardship


Other Lutherans turn to environ- mental stewardship as a means of living out their faith through food. Take Greg Massa and Raquel Krach, members of Faith Lutheran Church in Chico, Calif.


The couple use sustainable farm- ing methods to grow organic rice, which they sell under the brand name Massa Organics to farmers’ markets, natural food stores, restaurants, hos- pitals and schools.


“Our approach is really to try to take care of creation through our farming practices,” Massa said. “We try to incorporate God’s creatures into our agricultural systems.” For example, rather than farming all the way to the edge of their prop- erty, Massa and Krach left a border of natural habitat so species such as California quail and sandhill cranes can thrive there. They love to watch otters from a nearby river swimming in the flooded rice fields.


“This may be a stretch, but we feel that if we model our farm to mimic nature, we are attempting to farm in


The trouble with food P


icture this: It’s January in Minnesota. You go to the gro- cery store and buy strawberries. Not frozen, canned or jarred strawberries, but fresh ones—big, luscious fruits that drip with sugary sweetness. OK, so these strawberries weren’t exactly grown down the street, but come on … what’s a little guilty pleasure for a sun-starved and shiver- ing Midwesterner in the middle of winter? (Full disclosure: I’m from Minnesota and no doubt have eaten strawberries in January.)


The trouble is that the food in our grocery stores has “background.” It has been grown, harvested or slaugh- tered, processed, packed, shipped, distributed, stocked and shelved by the time we place it in our carts. And at each step along the way, questions arise about the ethics of our eating. Questions that might compli- cate our customary ways of relating to food. Questions that also have theological dimensions, but ones most of us haven’t been asking since our food systems have become more technological, globalized and profit- driven. (See Food and Faith by Nor-


24 The Lutheran • www.thelutheran.org


man Wirzba; Cambridge University Press, 2011.)


The strawberries, for instance:


chances are good that those midwin- ter delights were grown in Ventura County, Calif., where that industry grosses around $600 million dollars per year. To grow strawberries “conven- tionally”—that is to say, industri- ally—requires regular soil fumiga- tion to annihilate pests and weeds. The standard, highly toxic soil fumigant methyl bromide has been used for decades but is phasing out because it degrades the ozone layer. Its hoped-for replacement, methyl iodide, was so controversially toxic that it was pulled from the market. Other standard pesticides include compounds used as chemical weap- ons during 20th-century wars (such as chloropicrin) and the “neonicoti- noids” that appear to be linked to bee Colony Collapse Disorder (see the documentary The Vanishing of the Bees).


Even when growers are careful and conscientious (and most are), pesticide and herbicide exposure


remains a risk born largely by low- income (often immigrant) workers, who may live in “food deserts” where the very produce they pick and pack is unavailable to their families. And from production to distribu- tion, the whole operation is deeply dependent on fossil fuels, adding another layer of ethical complexity amid concerns about climate change. I’m concerned in part because I live in a strawberry-growing area. Others might be more interested in how corn or cucumbers or chickens are produced. The point is not to single out a particular crop or kind of farmer but to encourage greater awareness of our food systems and practices. Because the “moment of truth” in the grocery store is about more than personal food preferences. In light of Lutheran theology and


ethics, it’s about how we as a com- munity relate to land, to one another and to God, and how we translate our theological ideals into actions. God’s covenant is with both peo- ple and the land, both of which are deeply connected to concepts of jus- tice and rightly ordered community


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