This week’s organization is Oxfam America, a nonprofit international development and relief agency and the US affiliate of Oxfam International. Oxfam works to end global poverty through saving lives, strengthening communities, and campaigning for change.

Oxfam has a variety of ways for people to contribute, and my friend Layne chose one way to make a difference via giving gifts in the names of her family for Christmas this year.  She made a short video for her family about these gifts, and she kindly agreed to let me share it with you.  The link is:

 http://web.mac.com/allisonlayne/Site/project1.html

January 6 is the date celebrated around the world as the day the Magi paid homage to the baby Jesus.  In the US Catholic Church, that celebration is held the first Sunday after the 6th — today.  For this reason, I’d like to share a story about a wise man you may not have heard before.

When we were in high school, my sister Chris discovered the tale of Artaban, The Story of the Other Wise Man.  In this lovely little book (copyrighted 1895), Henry VanDyke tells of Artaban, a wise man of Persia who, like his fellow Magi, plans to travel under the light of a new star to seek out the newborn King of Israel.  Artaban has sold his home and worldly possessions in order to make the trip and to take a gift of three jewels fit for the King:  a sapphire, a ruby, and a pearl. On the first night of his journey, Artaban stops to care for an ill man by the side of the road.  He misses his rendezvous with the other Magi, however, the man he has helped tells him he should seek the babe in Bethlehem, rather than in Jerusalem.  Artaban must sell the sapphire to outfit himself, then travels across the desert, arriving alone in Bethlehem.  Stopping at a home with an open door, Artaban receives the news from a young mother, cradling her infant son, that the other Magi and the Nazarene family all fled in the night.  Just then, a great disruption is heard, and soldiers enter the street.  The people are screaming that the soldiers are killing their babies.  As a soldier appears in the doorway of the little home, Artaban lies — claiming he is alone, and offers the ruby if the soldier will pass by this house.

Artaban is ashamed of his lie, but feels he had no choice if he wished to save the baby.  He is also distressed at having now used two of the jewels he brought for the King.  However, the woman whose child he saves blesses him, and tells him that the Nazarene family fled to Egypt. 

And Artaban continues his journey.  In Egypt, Artaban follows rumors of the little family he seeks.  A wise rabbi tells him the King will be found among the people, not in a palace, so Artaban seeks him in humble surroundings.  VanDyke says, “In all this populous and intricate world of anguish, though he found none to worship, he found many to help. He fed the hungry, and clothed the naked, and healed the sick, and comforted the captive; and his years went by more swiftly than the weaver’s shuttle that flashes back and forth through the loom while the web grows and the invisible pattern is completed.”

In the thirty-third year of his quest, Artaban comes to the city of Jerusalem in the season of Passover.  Artaban sees an excited crowd, and speaks to one of them.  He is told that a Nazarene man who has done great things is to be crucified  for claiming to be the King of the Jews.  Artaban begins to travel with the crowd, thinking he may have finally found the one he sought, only to watch him die.  Just then a slave girl breaks away from a group of soldiers who are dragging her through the streets and begs Artaban to help her.  Artaban pays for her life and freedom with the last of his jewels, the pearl he has carried next to his heart these many years while seeking the King.  There is a sudden earthquake, and Artaban is knocked down by a roof tile which hits him on the head.  God speaks to the dying Artaban, telling him that in caring for those in need, Artaban has indeed gifted the King.

The story is old fashioned in its language and melodramatic in its telling, yet (and this really won’t surprise you!) I love it.  I have neither Artaban’s faith nor his perseverance.  Over the years, though, I have often thought of Artaban’s pearl of great price and  I believe that I do possess such a jewel which I must spend well.  This life I have been given is my pearl.  I have not always appreciated its value, nor have I always chosen to spend it on the things that matter or that make a difference.  The tapestry of my days is being woven at an alarmingly fast pace, yet this story helps me to see that my daily choices create the pattern — and I do want it to be a beautiful one! 

Here’s to a week spent well and thoughtfully for us all!

As my friend, Molly, has suggested, Top 10 lists abound at the end of the year — especially if it is also the end of a decade. I thought I’d do a variation of the tradition covering the first week of 2010.  The Top 5 Difficult Things and the Top 5 Great Things thus far in the new year and decade.  Let’s begin with the difficult things…

5.  I was disheartened to learn that Papa Murphy’s only sells their reduced calorie/reduced fat “deLITE” pizza in one size — large.  I learned this as I was purchasing one for my personal New Year’s Eve celebration at home.  But I told myself I could eat one serving and put the rest away for later. 

4.  I discovered that a large pepperoni “deLITE” pizza can, in fact, be consumed by one person in one sitting.

3.  I spent most of New Year’s Day feeling queasy.  Pizza hangover??

2.  It has been so flipping cold for so long I’ve forgotten what it feels like to live in a reasonable climate. (And it has only been two weeks since I was in New Mexico!)

1.  I am now on the final item in my top 5 Difficult Things from the First Week of 2010, and it is the fourth one that refers to my consumption of an entire large pizza on New Year’s Eve:   I had to spend serious time sitting with my feelings about it.  This is a sign of just how strongly affected I was by the event.  Not just the binge itself, or even the short-lived feelings of shame (which resulted in me walking into a party that night and announcing to a room full of strangers that I had eaten a large pizza by myself).  Mostly, I’ve spent a lot of time wrestling with the complex issues bound up in and exemplified by that pizza-palooza.  I know that everyone overeats sometimes.  But there was a point at which the eating stopped being pleasurable and started being something compulsive and self-destructive.  Clearly, I have more work to do on my food-related issues.

Now for the Top 5 Great Things:

5.  Sitting with the Reisinger’s and holding little Nicholas while his dad (the Athletic Director) stepped in as an assistant coach at the women’s basketball game last night.

4.  I’ve spent most of my life avoiding responsibility for shoveling snow, only to realize this morning that I actually LOVE shovelling snow.  It is great exercise, it is generally beautiful to look at, it is invigorating to be outside and not freezing.  But the best part, for me, is that I can see the progress I’ve made and how much there is yet to do at every moment of the task.  That is a rare gift, considering that in my line of work I almost never have direct evidence of progress or feelings of completion!

3.  Discovering that Panera Bread’s website has a nutrition calculator, so I can plan in advance what to order and know exactly what to record later in my food diary. 

2.  Swiss chard.  I have never cooked with either kale or swiss chard before this winter, but I have now cooked tasty food with both.  Don’t forget to check out the recipes page in the sidebar.  I am only sharing the ones I like!

1.  Time with people:  both those I love and the interesting, kind, stimulating people I met this week.  Colette’s New Year’s Eve party and dinner with old friends at Panera on Monday were both soul-nourishing and fun.  I was honored, on Sunday evening, to be invited to the blessing ceremony and celebration dinner for baby Hana Beverly Hadzic.  Dinner was catered by The Chef’s Table, a new restaurant in Iowa City.  I have to say, that evening is what dinner should be:  warmth, pleasant conversation, delicious whole food prepared thoughtfully — truly a highlight for this new year.  

I’m ready to move forward into this new decade — I plan to drop some old baggage for good, to learn how to make pirogue, to laugh from joy and humor and not at others’ expense…  Unlike Oprah, I don’t have many things that “I know for sure”.  But I do have this one thing — you need to learn from the past but you can’t drag it around with you everyday letting it suck up your energy.  To that end, I’m ready to say, “Adios, Large deLITE Pepperoni Pizza”.  Rest in peace.

Some of you may not remember the singer/songwriter, Harry Chapin.  I do.  My whole family listened to his music a lot when I was in high school.  One night, I was doing the dishes and listening to a Harry Chapin album.  The song playing was a love song that went, “Oh, my Jenny.”  Suddenly my brother Jeff came running up the stairs from the family room to say that Harry Chapin had been killed in a car accident.  It was a sad moment for a lot of fans.

I mention all of this because this week’s organization is Why. Finding Answers for Hunger and Poverty, which was established in 1975 by Harry Chapin and radio talkshow host Bill Ayres.  A quote from their website:

WHY is convinced that solutions to hunger and poverty can be found at the grassroots level. WHY advances long-term solutions to hunger and poverty by supporting community-based organizations that empower individuals and build self-reliance, i.e., offering job training, education and after school programs; increasing access to housing and healthcare; providing microcredit and entrepreneurial opportunities; teaching people to grow their own food; and assisting small farmers. WHY connects these organizations to funders, media and legislators.

In addition to offering emergency assistance, WHY really focuses on building self-reliance and skills, so that people are helped for a lifetime, not just when in crisis.  They also sponsor the Harry Chapin Media Awards, which highlight the best writing on hunger and poverty in a variety of genres.  Definitely check out their website (link on the “Ballot” page in the sidebar).

I have a few friends and family members (you know who you are, and so does everyone else) for whom control is a major issue.  It never has been for me.  In fact, I once went  to an astrologer (I was about 29 at the time) who said, “You just now figured out that you CAN exert some control over your life — up till now you’ve just assumed your life was happening and your role was to go along for the ride.”  Regardless of the accuracy of the rest of my natal chart, this particular comment really struck home.

Over the past week, especially during my time in New Mexico with my family, I struggled more than is typical with a desire to be in control — in one area in particular:  food.  When you are a guest in other people’s homes, it doesn’t feel right to dictate the food selection or to have a hissy fit if what is served isn’t quite what you wanted.  My family was very sensitive to my efforts to lose weight and my concerns about weathering the holidays without too much damage on the scale, and they bent over backwards to meet my needs.  But I still found myself confronted with options I wouldn’t have faced at home.  Of course, there were temptations to my self-discipline, like my niece Hallie’s “birds nests”.  But what I am really talking about here are the meal basics — entrees, sides, etc. — not the holiday goodies that were available in addition to the meals.

In the midst of my frustration over my lack of control,  I thought about the organizations I’ve listed on this blog who send meals to shut-ins or who operate food pantries and/or soup kitchens — and about the many individuals and families who are dependent upon these services for their daily sustenance.  And it occurred to me that one of the side-effects of being hungry (from poverty or disaster)  is that you do not get to exert any control over the food you receive, are served, or must eat to survive.  I thought it was difficult to go for a week eating what others chose to serve — and it helped me realize what a luxury the control most of us have on a daily basis truly is. 

I was thinking this very thought as my parents and I were driving to meet my sister Gwen’s family.  One of those Christmas music radio stations was on, and they were playing the Bob Geldof song written for African famine relief — at the end, they repeatedly sing the line “Feed the world”.  I’ve been listening and singing along to this song for about 20 years now.  But this line struck me anew — and I admit I got a little choked up singing it — feed the world.  In comparison to this simple imperative, it seemed silly to worry about whether I could “afford” the calories in the roast beef being served for dinner. 

It took me days to relax into the idea that I wasn’t in control of each meal’s menu; to refocus on the things that were important in the moment at hand.  Once I was able to do that, the whole food thing was a lot less stressful.  Now that I am back home and back in control of the food I’m eating, I can clearly see that I once again wasted energy focusing on the wrong things too much of the time (a lifelong bad habit).  Here, I am in control of my food choices, but I am eating alone — I find I’d rather have my mom or my sister selecting the menu if it means I get to share the meal with them.

Like I said before, I have never really had a high need for control.  It is more than time, though, to exercise control over my thinking and my tendency to be out of the moment.  Sounds like a New Year’s resolution!

I love Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. I have read it many times, and each year I watch numerous adaptations of it on television and film.  The whole idea that it is never too late to realize what is important, never too late to change into a better version of yourself, has always appealed to me.  In fact, tonight I plan to curl up under the beautiful throw my friend Colette gave me for Christmas and watch “Scrooge”, the musical version starring Albert Finney — a film I remember seeing in the theater as a kid.

When I was younger, I found the idea of the three ghostly visitors to be frightening in a thrilling way.  Who wouldn’t want ghosts like these to visit and show you glimpses of the lives your life has touched?  This year, though, I am a little less enthralled with one particular ghoul — The Ghost of Christmas Past.

It isn’t that my memories of Christmas are difficult — in fact, I come from a Christmas-loving family who turned each holiday-related experience or activity into an annual tradition until we were fulfilling someone’s “favorite” tradition from sun-up Christmas Eve through sun-down on Christmas Day.  Elves, stockings, surprise visits from Santa himself…all of these memories I treasure.

But I also remember Christmases that began with homemade cinnamon bread with icing, followed by trays of delicious goodies, pretzels and cheese spread, stolen nibbles from the table before the actual hour of the meal arrived.  I can remember a couple of occasions when, after grazing for hours I sat down and ate two heaping helpings of every dish served.  There have been Christmas afternoons when I have lain on a sofa or floor and wondered if this was going to be the year my stomach actually exploded.

Dear Readers, I would be lying if I said I know for a fact that this year will not be like that.  One thing about getting where I am today with regard to food and weight is that I am a world-champion justifier.  And the absolute best justification in the past has been, “Its Christmas”.  Beautiful in its truth and simplicity.

In Dickens’ tale, each Ghost forces Ebineezer Scrooge to look at both the bright and dark moments of life.  My personal Ghost of Christmas Past is causing me to take a hard look at how it happened that I confused eating foods I love with feeling loved.  It is also asking me to keep in mind that, like Scrooge, I have been equating my emotional need with the very real need felt by so many. This is how I have justified hoarding and loading up rather than open-handedly sharing bounty I’ve been given;  it is how I have justified overindulgences of many kinds.  Scrooge and I, in our relative wealth and comfort, have both been too self-focused. 

Thursday morning, Christmas Eve, I will weigh-in on the scale at my sister Gwen’s home.  It will reveal a momentary snapshot of where I am on this quest to both change myself and make a difference for others.  I want to thank all of you for your support and encouragement these past few weeks.  I know that whatever the scale says this week or next, you will continue to offer these wonderful gifts. 

May the holiday season be bright with light and laughter for us all.  And may it be said of each of us, as in the end it was said of Scrooge — that if anyone knows how to keep Christmas, we do!

This week’s hunger relief organization is a local, Eastern Iowa,  agency named HACAP (Hawkeye Area Community Action Program.  Their tag line: “A help up, not a hand out.”  HACAP is a member of the Feeding America network of food programs.  I’ve copied, below, some of the accomplishments of their food resevoir program.  They can be found at http://www.hacap.org.  HACAP’s programs make a real difference throughout this community.

The Food Reservoir Program:

• Distributes approximately 1.4 million pounds of food to local organizations;
• Provides over 5,000 food boxes a year for families in need;
• Serves as a food distributor for Holiday Assistance Programs, which help over 2,800 families annually
• Operates the HACAP Adopt-a-Family Program that links over 300 families with individuals and organizations wishing to donate food and gifts to needy families; and
• Saves the 103 partner agencies over $2,000,000 in food costs, based on wholesale costs, thereby allowing them to spend those funds on other program activities and services.