I read the following this morning, while leafing through my copy of Simply in Season - Recipes that celebrate fresh, local foods in the spirit of More-with-Less:
In stories of earlier times, we read of rare delights: the first greens after a long winter. The miracle of an orange. We can almost taste the pleasure of such moments - the exquisite experience of luxury.
Yet those pleasures are no longer ours. Oranges are nice but hardly an occasion to feel blessed. The idea of a winter without lettuce is unthinkable, and we would probably turn up our noses at those dandelion leaves - or whatever - that our forebears were so thrilled to eat.
Are we better off? In some ways I am sure we are. Yet when abundance breeds an inability to appreciate, we are the losers.
Our family joined a CSA (Community Supported or Shared Agriculture), buying a share of the produce of a nearby farm. In July I was surprised when we stopped getting lettuce. They said it was too hot. I noticed my feeling of entitlement and how put off I felt by their inability to come up with it. What, exactly, makes me entitled to lettuce?
I think I would be happier if I did not feel entitled to lettuce.
- Pamela Haines, Philadelphia, Pa. (p. 203)
This article got me thinking: Just because I have access to something, does that mean I am entitled to it? Just because I do not see the immediate consequences of my choices as a consumer, does that make them any less guided by my ethics of loving my neighbour or taking care of my (God's) planet?
Related worship: Hosanna - Hillsong
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