On Monday night, about half of the participants met at Kate and Ian's for a home-cooked St. Patrick's Day dinner and a chance to reflect at the halfway point of our week. For $1.50 a plate (or more like 75 cents if you count seconds), we had easily one of our best meals of the week - roast pork shoulder, braised cabbage, and mashed potatoes.
During and after dinner, we talked about two things: our experiences of the fast so far (or our goals for the rest of it), and Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel & Dimed, which has been our companion to the week. From my point of view, there are a few themes that have come through:
1) I'm less sure that this is a "fast", because (especially with very careful shopping) it seems possible to find enough calories to get through the week. But the exercise of eating gains a lot in effort and loses in variety, which changes its character quite a bit - something that might otherwise be entertainment or barely noticed is not really either now.
2) Despite the (very) temporary nature of the situation, I think it's had some pretty clear lessons - tradeoffs in cost and nutrition, the higher unit prices of shopping alone on a restricted budget, the share of mind and time that this can consume. When you consider the sources that say that around a third of eligible households aren't even claiming food stamps, then the problem feels even worse.
3) Before we started, I thought about the project mostly as an educational one, but it surprises me how much it's had to say about fellowship as well. Everything we've done together - shopping, the dinner program, the blog, or Monday night - has made our resources (money, food, commitment) go further than they might by ourselves. Seems like both a little point and an old one, but maybe worth picking out for a moment, too.
With two meals to go, my original $28 is down to several cups of oatmeal, half a small jar of peanut butter, and three slices of bread - enough to get across the line, but it would be sobering to have to start from scratch again tomorrow night. The bigger challenge will be to ask ourselves what we can do next.
3 comments:
I enjoyed your thoughtful analysis of this experience, especially the importance of fellowship. Look forward to sharing further thoughts tomorrow at dinner. Nancy
I hope that you will all have a chance to share your experiences with the St. James' community at tonight's Agape Supper - your discipline this week has been a strong example of the "love and fellowship" meaning of the word. I've enjoyed reading the blog entries and congratulate you all on both your willingness to do this and your articulate sharing of your experiences.
Christine Hoffman
Thanks for your entry Jonathan. I'm reflecting on your reflections. I agree that the real challenge will be to ask ourselves what we can do next...I'm excited about those possibilities/opportunities.
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