• Even when I had lunch out on Day 4, because of a previously scheduled luncheon, the food wasn’t that enticing.  I have let food become a major contender in my life.  I love to eat, and often live to eat, instead of letting food be the sustainer that it was created to be.  Food should be a sideline in my life, instead of an idol.
• A change in nutrition affects mood.  Life was hard this week, not because I was hungry (rice and beans are very filling), but because life looks different through the poverty lens.  I wanted to identify with those who don’t have a multitude of choices.  And I found out how depressing it is to have those limitations.  It’s not a “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” problem.  It’s a life-altering frame of mind.
• Pictures of starved people were more personal.  Usually, when I see photos, I nudge them off.  But this experience made me more sensitive to the needs of others.  I couldn’t disappear into a bag of chips and say, “Oh, that’s too bad.”  I had a new empathy for those who have nothing to eat.
• We are all impoverished at some level.  Maybe it’s food, finances, job possibilities, education, emotional, physical or spiritual, we all have some level of lack.  And I see a huge correlation with the desperation created by poverty of any kind, whether it’s food, debt or affirmation.

Sally

Related Posts:

The Great Poverty Diet Experiment 

Dangerous Surrender 

The Difference A Candle Makes