National Hunger Action Month: A spiritual perspective

"Consumerism has caused us to get used to the daily excess and waste of food, which we are no longer capable of seeing for its true worth, which goes well beyond mere economic parameters. Remember, however, that the food that is thrown away is as if we had stolen it from the table of the poor, from those who are hungry."

So said Pope Francis, in remarks about hunger and the environment in his general audience of June 5, 2013. Feeding America, the national hunger advocacy organization, has designated September as National Hunger Action Month. We are a nation of plenty with an abundance of food, yet one in six children experiences hunger every day.

Our country was founded on spiritual principles and we have been gifted with many rich spiritual traditions. Yet far too many hearts as well as bodies go unnourished. What spiritual hunger or hungers go unfed?

For some people, the answer can be found in the movie The Shoes of the Fisherman: "The dying is easy. It is the living that defeats us." Destitution. Squalor. Misery. These realities are the graves for individuals, families and whole communities. Wealth in and of itself or even being middle class is no guarantee of nourishment.

Society's materialism, or what Blessed Teresa of Calcutta called our "muchness," has blunted our awareness of the gift of food as well as the divine gift of our inner hunger. As a result, Henry David Thoreau's "mass of men [who] lead lives of quiet desperation" turn to anything that will dull the edges of hopelessness. That anything has a name: addiction.

William Carlos Williams, the American poet who was also a pediatrician and general practitioner, also wrote on the hungers of the human heart.

"It is difficult
to get the news from poems
yet men die miserably everyday
for the lack
of what is found there."

The same could be said of music, art and dance. We hunger for beauty as well as for the Beautiful because we hunger for something that will give voice to the voiceless and the sublime within us.

An almost insatiable curiosity marks humanity's hunger for knowledge, which can also be blunted. But is it not just any knowledge; we need information that helps us to make life meaningful. However, lack of knowledge is not deterrent to a life well lived. I have met people with less than an eighth grade education as well as the illiterate who could shame college professors in terms of purposeful living.

People are hungry for truth as well as knowledge. One of St. Teresa of Avila's famous lines concerns the truth we so often ignore, that is, we hunger for the bread of self-knowledge. Self-awareness is the key that unlocks the door of denial, thus opening the way to tremendous opportunities.

Often when I listen to people who are seeking God's will, I remind them they need to listen to their deepest desires; that is, what they deeply hunger for. St. Augustine, a man of profound hungers, commented on his conversion when he wrote, "Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you! You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you." Thus seeking God's will is seeking the kingdom within, to use one of Jesus' phrases, rather than pursuing something external.

Our world not only hungers, it aches and in far too many places, it starves as a result of violence and noise. Individuals hunger for silence amid the clamor of progress and technology. Families hunger for wisdom as well as for food. We hunger for community as we are social creatures and we have a yearning to share with others be it food, education, the arts or just a listening heart. It is in our sharing we can nourish our own hunger for sense of connectedness.

Finally, we come full circle because every hunger of the heart begins and ends with our longing for God. So, this September, take action; be it a donation to a local food pantry or making a Holy Hour. Whatever you do, share in the feast by inviting someone to do it with you.