Sunday 2 November 2003

Pic of the day: We live not by bread alone, but it sure can be tasty. Not least with cheese. But that's beside the point ...

Our daily bread

Those of you who are Christians, or who have grown up in a Christian culture, are probably familiar with "The Lord's Prayer". It is rather short, and generally concerns important spiritual goals. So perhaps one more of you have been slightly surprised that it contains a line that seems dedicated to the body rather than the spirit: "Give us today our daily bread."

I briefly thought about that sentence today as I enjoyed my lunch. I remember once again that for some people food is not a sure thing. There are almost certainly a number of Christians even today who cannot eat all they want, if at all.

I reflected further on the distribution of hunger and famine. For the most part, famine only strikes countries in war or civil war; I guess some dictatorships may get it anyway, but then again dictatorships tend to get into wars and civil wars all the time, too. Where there is freedom and rule of law, hunger is a rare guest indeed. Intriguingly, the number of people doesn't seem to matter. During my lifetime world population has grown by around one billion people. If anything, there is less hunger in the world today than when I grew up. In China alone, each year the middle class increases by a number approximately like the whole population of Scandinavia. And as these people move from poverty to middle class lifestyle, they also want to eat better. This has caused great worry, ironically mostly among people on the left side of politics, since meat and refined foods use much more agricultural resources than a meal of simple rice. Despite this, it doesn't seem like more people than usual are going hungry.

And it struck me that perhaps hunger is after all a spiritual problem. If we love our neighbor, if we seek peace on earth and good will among all men, then I believe that each of us would also get our daily bread. For the Kingdom of Heaven is not supposed to stay in the sky; it is God's will (on Earth as in Heaven) that we care for one another. This is surely not limited to bread, but I guess that's a good place to start.

Speaking of which... You can feed the starving for free.