World Hunger Day Oct 16 2008
In front of a night sky filled with blue swirls and round white stars, a group of people dressed in more swirls, poke-a-dots and bright colors are bringing offerings of food to add to a huge yellow pot of soup stirred by a person in green. There are peppers, tomatoes, potatoes and carrots. One man is lifting a child high into the sky so she can reach over the crowd to add her bowl of veggies to the soup.
Below the picture is the quote from Matthew 25:35, “I was hungry and you fed meâ€. Second Presbyterian endorsed the Interfaith Hunger Initiative in June of this year with The Indianapolis Covenant that includes this phrase: “WHEREAS, our religious traditions, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Sikhism, all clearly teach that God expects us to care for the hungry; therefore as individuals and as religious congregations we commit ourselves and our resources to eliminating child and family hunger both locally and globally.â€
Thursday, Oct. 16, is World Hunger Day. This day set aside to remember that 854 million people across the globe are hungry, raised the month of October as a good choice for Second Presbyterian to highlight hunger. Congregants received collection cups this past Sunday to place on their tables. They are urged to fill the cups with cash for hunger relief as they enjoy their own family meals. On Oct. 12 the Interfaith Hunger Initiative has scheduled a forum on hunger with their congressional candidates — how great is that, to not only hold ourselves responsible but to also invite lawmakers to see that their constituents take ending hunger very seriously!
On World Hunger Day itself the Indianapolis community is invited to meet at the Circle for an un-lunch and time of prayer. The month goes on with other hunger awareness and hunger action activities including Jim Morris, former executive director of the UN World Food Program, in the pulpit at Second Presbyterian on Oct. 19.
I am sure that many of our religious groups in east central Indiana are also planning events around World Hunger Day. I would be very happy to hear about them. And I would love to hear if we have anything similar to an Interfaith Hunger Initiative in east central Indiana. It seems like a good thing to have — working together to end hunger is the only way it will be achieved. It is a tremendous task but not an impossible one.
I am reminded of another group that took on a huge task — one that seemed impossible to achieve but is very close to the goal set so many years ago. Rotary took on the challenge of eradicating polio. Some readers may shrug because polio just isn’t an issue here. And it is hardly an issue globally because Rotarians all over the world said it wasn’t acceptable for any person to have polio when a simple vaccine given to all children would eradicate it.
Can you imagine what would happen to world hunger if the religious people of the world mobilized themselves and their religious bodies to eradicate it? Like polio, there is a cure. For hunger is it food. We have the food; we have the means to produce even more food. Would an Interfaith Hunger Initiative in our region allow us to come together to alleviate hunger in our own communities and around the world?