Advent Signs in Food for Life

One of the meditations for Advent last weekend was to slowly eat a piece of bread, to taste its goodness and reflect on your need to be nourished. Today my Advent star box invited me to eat a bowl of rice with steamed vegetables as a meal and to consider those who think themselves lucky if this is the only food they get today.

Pictured with this post is the cover of Food for Life: Recipes and Stories on the Right to Food. It's published by the Lutheran World Federation edited by Karin Achtelstetter and Miriam Reidy-Prost with the recipes tested by the muti-talented Geneva-based Argentine cook Gabriela Vilardo. You can read more about it here. You can order the book by following the links at the bottom.

For me food is a desperately complex issue, as it is for many women battling with weight, cravings and guilt. I'm not just a fat woman but also a fat woman who preaches, encouraging others and myself to live more responsibly. An instant's look at me tells you I'm not taking enough of the medecine I preach about so freely. So another level of guilt is added - my size being a counter-witness to the life-giving Word I seek to share.
So as the world food crisis deepens, I wait for more justice for the millions who do not have anywhere near enough. I also wait to lay down my burden of guilt about food and to learn to concentrate on what truly nourishes me. And I give thanks for spiritual discipline that at least allows me to evoke my lack of nutritional discipline.

"Food for Life: Recipes and Stories on the Right to Food", published by the Lutheran World Federation, Geneva, ISBN 978-3-905676-62-4, price 25 Swiss francs/15 euros + postage, order from cmu@lutheranworld.org

Web: www.lutheranworld.org/What_We_Do/OCS/OCS-Cookbook.html