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Family and friends from outside Washington, DC have asked me a number of times this year how life's been going in DC, and perhaps I haven't had the negative response that they were expecting. While I've had to add the caveat that yes, it's awful that ICE is taking away immigrants and that so many people are losing their jobs, and less than ideal to have the National Guard milling around, I've also been filled with a lot of hope and encouragement this year. There's been a wealth of community building efforts that have been giving me life and demonstrating that there's another way - we don't have to be despondent about the current state of affairs. But we have a lot of work to do. Fortunately, it can be done around something that everyone likes: food.
I was on a Braver Catholics call last night, and Fr. Ricky Manalo shared that reconciliation is supposed to happen BEFORE coming together to celebrate the Lord's supper. We can't fully and truly celebrate the meal that Jesus wanted us to share together if there is divisiveness among us.
I've been encouraged this year learning about the Potluck Project initiated by Rev. Terry Kyllo, recently taking it into my own hands to spearhead in Washington, D.C. The Potluck Project brings people together across various divides (religious, political, age, socioeconomic, etc.) to break down silos and simply have us get to know each other, ever so slowly chipping away at the divisiveness that exists when we live in our own bubbles. While it has arms in depolarization and civic engagement through collaboration with Braver Angels and Better Together America, the Potluck Project also seeks to simply replicate the coming together around a meal where everyone's invited, which Jesus modeled for us.
I just finished reading Br. Gary Nabhan's book "Food from the Radical Center: Healing our Land and Communities" and to be honest, it took me until I got to the end to get a sense of what he meant by the term "Radical Center." I get excited when I see the word "radical" and know it's referring to the origin of the word (root), but what exactly was meant by the "Radical Center"? Reading about the ways that communities are being revitalized quite literally from the ground up through a bolstered food economy contributed to by people across the political spectrum in his community in Arizona, it solidified for me what I've been saying for a number of years - that food has the unique ability to help us bridge the political divide. My rationale has been that the Democrat/Republican divide is roughly also the urban/rural divide, and food generally comes moreso from rural areas in order to feed the masses of people in urban areas, and so focusing on food would be a way of bridging these communities together. But as I reflect, there are actually many layers to the idea of "Food from the Radical Center."
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From the book:
"They have put their energy into rainwater harvesting, hothouse gardening, vertical farming, wild foraging, making mesquite tortillas or planting heritage trees, gleaning fallen fruits or fermenting greens into sauerkraut, learning the ropes of managing a community kitchen, or selling vegetable transplants at a swap meet.
Their roles are so much more varied than simply being a grass-fed cattle rancher, an heirloom corn farmer, or a celebrity chef. It is this diversity of voices and choices that is making Tuscon live up to its status as the first 'City of Food Cultures' in the United States.
The people working in these collaborations are well aware of the divisiveness that surrounds them. They can see how polarization is undermining our federal government, crippling our state governments, anesthetizing our foundations, and diminishing the compassionate responses of our educational institutions.
And yet most Tuscon residents are choosing collaboration over competition to get our food system back on track. They have found novel ways to create - from the grassroots up - a series of striking innovations that not only have begun to feed our community members who are most in need but have offered them a new range of livelihoods.
It is fair to say that they are now being nourished by food from the radical center, perhaps because they are reengaged with many of their neighbors who are also taking the middle path....
It is my prayer that your efforts will keep building, rising, and raising all of us up - like a leavened ball of dough - to become a more richly textured world where we may eat all together at a common table."
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This reference to a "common table" written by an Ecumenical Franciscan does not go unnoticed by this Catholic Franciscan working in the food space, which is another reason why I'm excited about the Potluck Project in bringing people together from every walk of life, the way that Jesus wanted it to be and modeled through his own life.
I'm currently organizing a book study of "The Meal that Reconnects: Eucharistic Eating and the Global Food Crisis" by Mary McCann. We have to acknowledge that our food system is harming humans and the environment, rather than being the ethical food system that would characterize Eucharistic eating. We also have to acknowledge that true Eucharistic eating - where we can all come together around a common table - is a way of eating where reconciliation with our fellow humans and non-human aspects of creation happens first. I believe both of these need to happen before we can celebrate a true "Eucharistic" (translated as "Thanksgiving," from the Greek ευχαριστία) meal - the "Lord's supper," a meal where relationships in society are healed and that manifests God's will on earth as it is in heaven.
May we find that Radical Center through centering food and those who are traditionally excluded from our circles, to heal both our land and our communities.
Learn more about the Potluck Project here:
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