I was interviewed last week about the spirituality of housecleaning. While the conversation focused on Passover/Pesah cleaning, and the heightened sense of purpose and satisfaction in (re)creating or (re)capturing order for the holiday, the lessons apply year-round, even if at a less fevered pitch.
I was reminded of this earlier today while on my hands and knees cleaning the kitchen floor after a wonderful holiday weekend of family, visitors and food preparations. The floor was definitely in need of attention, as, so it seemed, was my spirit. The serendipitous combination of the two yielded a welcome insight on cleaning.
Spiritual awareness is a full-body experience. Those who meditate and practice yoga know this. But in that case, the effort is to transcend body, to ignore the body's call for movement, stimulation, responsiveness, claims to attention. That too is a response of sorts to the hegemony of the body.
Those who seek the mountains, the rivers, the sea, the open road also know that the placement of the body, its surroundings and experiences, conjure up certain spiritual responses. We need to preserve nature not just for its physically sustaining properties but for its spiritually sustaining properties. For the ways our bodies connect to the physical world can evoke and inspire powerful spiritual experiences.
Thomas Berry writes: "We have a wonderful idea of God because we have always lived on a planet that is chock-full, every nook and cranny, with marvels and mysteries, dark beauty, happy encounters and splendid landscapes. How could we picture God in our heads as an ever fresh and creative daybreak, as a compassionate father or nurturing mother, as a wonder-counselor if we had never experienced these qualities in the people, land and life around us?
What kind of God would we pray to if we lived on the bleak surface of the moon? We are literally killing off our religious imagination when we destroy the natural world."
Cut to my dirty kitchen floor (not as far a leap from the mountaintop as you might think): cleaning the floor with a mop - to grandly over-state and over-dramatize the issue - has a colonizing, subjugationist, somewhat violent air to it. (Okay, just indulge me on this melodrama just for fun and to help me better make the point.) It is difficult to bond with the floor, appreciate it for being anything more than constantly underfoot, when it places itself everywhere beneath me, conveniently trod on. And more, it disturbingly demands attention to be cleaned by me because it can't take care of itself. So if I wash it from afar, from way up here, keeping a safe distance with a mop, my sense of self and of floor is master and subject.
But that is not how I wash the floor. Rather, I grab a wet rag and get down on my hands and knees, and wipe. This is radically different, more intimate and spiritual experience. First of all, the floor reveals itself in much greater detail from 18 inches than from 5 feet. Its contours, its places that need special attention, are more evident. Its material hints of its connection to the natural world, and thus conjures up an awareness of my reliance on it and its welfare.
But perhaps more, it is the posture of my body, the penitential attitude of being on hands and knees, that conjures up a spiritual and appreciative attitude toward the stuff of our lives in general, and the stuff of my home in particular. Why would we even imagine that tending well to the things that shelter our families, or to the matter that cocoons the work of homes, is not of the same spiritual caliber as planting a tree or being awe-struck at a sunset?
And we cannot overlook the pure satisfaction we can get in seeing the immediate results of our handiwork - our kitchen moving from "not clean" to "clean" because of our few minutes of work. In this world of distant results and deferred gratification, we should take our rewards where and when we can.
Two ritual acts that Jewish women in Italy undertook as their expressions of spiritual engagement (as significant to them as praying in a minyan was to men) were waxing and buffing the pews in the synagogue and making wicks for the candles that lit the building during services. Tending well to the condition of these things, like the condition of things in our homes, sensitizes us to the short tie that connects us to the natural world from which all our stuff comes. How much more could be our delight when we tend well to the natural world outside our windows?
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Friday, November 27, 2009
the call and response of mitzvah
What can the age-old concept of mitzvah mean for us today? Does it possess relevance that can inspire, even ignite, us?
We live in a world which celebrates autonomy, self-determination, and guidance coming from within. Can the concept of mitzvah, which classically is understood as 'commandment', an 'obligation', an urgency coming from without, remain compelling, even central, to our lives?
And how would it be incorporated into our understanding of Judaism and environmentalism?
I wish to argue that not only can the concept of mitzvah be compelling for us today, but that it already is. We need to acknowledge it and name it and bring it to the fore.
Mitzvah, it seems to me, is degraded and flattened when translated as commandment. It becomes static, two-dimensional; it loses context, passion and purpose in such a translation. It becomes something that is thrown down, cold and isolated, a burden to be picked up and attended to.
But I imagine mitzvah to be totally otherwise. I see mitzvah as the choreography, the dance, of call and response; it is the very currency of relationship, of one calling out, seeking a response from the other and the other turning toward, and responding to the one who seeks.
It takes two for mitzvah to be. It begins as a need, a desire, the reaching that comes from the one calling out, extended to the other being called to. Sometimes this calling is directed to a specific audience. Sometimes, it is a broadside, cast out in desperation for anyone to pick up. Either way, mitzvah conjures up calling, need, intimacy, hearing, response.
This is the way we all live our lives, intentionally or not. The world calls out to us at all times and we respond, either by engaging or turning away. Both are responses. The first is the way of mitzvah; the second is not.
Sometimes it is a person, or a community, or even a nation that calls to us. Serving as agents on their own behalf, they put forward their needs, more or less forcefully, and wait expectantly. We either choose to engage, or we disappoint.
But sometimes it is those who have no voice, no agent, no advocate who call to us: the land, the earth, the claims of unborn generations, the hopes and charges of past generations, the vulnerable and powerless. These calls are harder to hear, but they are there. These too make claims on us; these too are potential beginnings of mitzvah. And we respond with our actions, the quotidian and grand behaviors that together comprise the fullness of our lives.
Everyday the world, its possessions and its people, call to us. Everyday we put out our call, to family, to friends, to the world at large: be with us, love us, listen to us, encourage us, teach us, make room for us... We do not expect to be turned away, empty-handed. Tears, loneliness, distress well up if we are. As we expect the world to hear and respond to us, so we are bidden to hear and respond to it.
Mitzvah, then, is about naming and acknowledging this relationship; about being honest about the truth that all life is lived in call and response. It is about the fact that our daily lives are lived on both sides of this coupling, and that our happiness, and the world's health and prosperity, rests on the graciousness or narrowness of our response.
So it makes no sense to ask if mitzvah can be a compelling concept for us today. It already it. The only question is: how well do we tend to it?
We live in a world which celebrates autonomy, self-determination, and guidance coming from within. Can the concept of mitzvah, which classically is understood as 'commandment', an 'obligation', an urgency coming from without, remain compelling, even central, to our lives?
And how would it be incorporated into our understanding of Judaism and environmentalism?
I wish to argue that not only can the concept of mitzvah be compelling for us today, but that it already is. We need to acknowledge it and name it and bring it to the fore.
Mitzvah, it seems to me, is degraded and flattened when translated as commandment. It becomes static, two-dimensional; it loses context, passion and purpose in such a translation. It becomes something that is thrown down, cold and isolated, a burden to be picked up and attended to.
But I imagine mitzvah to be totally otherwise. I see mitzvah as the choreography, the dance, of call and response; it is the very currency of relationship, of one calling out, seeking a response from the other and the other turning toward, and responding to the one who seeks.
It takes two for mitzvah to be. It begins as a need, a desire, the reaching that comes from the one calling out, extended to the other being called to. Sometimes this calling is directed to a specific audience. Sometimes, it is a broadside, cast out in desperation for anyone to pick up. Either way, mitzvah conjures up calling, need, intimacy, hearing, response.
This is the way we all live our lives, intentionally or not. The world calls out to us at all times and we respond, either by engaging or turning away. Both are responses. The first is the way of mitzvah; the second is not.
Sometimes it is a person, or a community, or even a nation that calls to us. Serving as agents on their own behalf, they put forward their needs, more or less forcefully, and wait expectantly. We either choose to engage, or we disappoint.
But sometimes it is those who have no voice, no agent, no advocate who call to us: the land, the earth, the claims of unborn generations, the hopes and charges of past generations, the vulnerable and powerless. These calls are harder to hear, but they are there. These too make claims on us; these too are potential beginnings of mitzvah. And we respond with our actions, the quotidian and grand behaviors that together comprise the fullness of our lives.
Everyday the world, its possessions and its people, call to us. Everyday we put out our call, to family, to friends, to the world at large: be with us, love us, listen to us, encourage us, teach us, make room for us... We do not expect to be turned away, empty-handed. Tears, loneliness, distress well up if we are. As we expect the world to hear and respond to us, so we are bidden to hear and respond to it.
Mitzvah, then, is about naming and acknowledging this relationship; about being honest about the truth that all life is lived in call and response. It is about the fact that our daily lives are lived on both sides of this coupling, and that our happiness, and the world's health and prosperity, rests on the graciousness or narrowness of our response.
So it makes no sense to ask if mitzvah can be a compelling concept for us today. It already it. The only question is: how well do we tend to it?
Sunday, November 22, 2009
sacred currency
If attitude, in large part, determines behavior, and we wish to change our behavior toward the natural world, then we must attend well to our attitude toward it.
(The converse is also true: behavior shapes attitude, that is, what we do shapes what we believe. The two are interdependent; chicken and egg. For now, however, I focus on the attitude as the cause.)
It is not much contested that the western, industrial world sees nature as a commodity, something, gratefully, put here to fill our needs and fulfill our desires. When mined, captured, gathered, contained and pressed into the service of humankind, natural resources become satisfiers - products that satisfy our various needs and appetites. We have no particular affection or connection to them beyond the experience of our using them. They are to be bought and sold, interchanged with other commodities that can also satisfy us. And when we are done with them, we throw them away.
But this commodity attitude is taking us to a dead end. Literally. In a world of limited natural resources but infinite appetite and needs, both spiritual and physical, we cannot afford to squandor the stuff of the earth. Nothing should be indiscriminately and profligately used, and used up, and nothing can be thrown away. As I wrote elsewhere, the very concept of waste is unnatural. It is a human conceit that lies outside the domain and processes of the natural world, treif. Nature knows no waste. Everything returns, recycles, re-engages. There is no "away". There is no "there". When something is finished and used up, it is just the beginning of a new round.
The dispassionate commodity attitude of procurement, production, consumption and disposal does not jibe with the natural world, and indeed is becoming its undoing.
What then should be a contemporary attitude toward the natural world that both honors the ways of the earth and affords the means and vocabulary of contemporary society?
I would like to suggest we find the answer in the phrase: "sacred currency." For several reasons:
1) nature is the "currency" with which God and the Jewish people communicate to each other.
2) currency is a concept readily integrated into the contemporary mind
3) the ethics of managing, investing and growing the value and volume of currency is something we understand
Let me explain each one a bit more.
1) Nature is the "currency" with which God and the Jewish people communicate to each other.
There is the pesky question of how the presence of God - immaterial, infinite, discernable only by a sixth sense and not the five with which we are physically endowed - becomes present to us clod-bound humans. Not only how do we sense God, but how, as it were, can God talk to us, intersect physically with us?
Tanakh in general, and Torah in particular, answer this in a most direct way: through the physical, natural world. Among the many places we see this in Torah is the following one, in which Moses, upon the eve of his death, adjures his precious but feisty people to be faithful to God and the covenant (Deuteronomy 28):
"All these blessings will come upon you and accompany you if you obey the LORD your God:
You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country.
The fruit of your womb will be blessed, and the crops of your land and the young of your livestock—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.
Your basket and your kneading trough will be blessed.
You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out.
The LORD will send a blessing on your barns and on everything you put your hand to. The LORD your God will bless you in the land he is giving you.
The LORD will grant you abundant prosperity — in the fruit of your womb, the young of your livestock and the crops of your ground — in the land he swore to your forefathers to give you. The LORD will open the heavens, the storehouse of his bounty, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations but will borrow from none."
The blessings, and the communication, between God and the people Israel (and by extension all humanity), are couched in terms of the fertility and productivity of the land, or, in contrast, the failure and impoverishment of the land.
Land, rain, natural resources, become the currency of exchange between God and Israel. God gives us the resources to thrive and we in turn take portions of that abundance to the Temple to give back to God.
To speak of our natural resources as currency instead of commodity, then, re-enchants the physical world for us, evoking the sacred and awesome sense that the physical world held for our ancestors.
2) currency is a concept readily integrated into the contemporary mind
Currency is a shared medium of exchange, a common way for us to meet each others' needs. It assumes movement, fluidity, change. But unlike commodity, it does not expect to be used up or consumed. Modernity understands that things have costs, and that the shapes and constitution of things may change. But fundamentally, value remains, and must not get degraded (or, dare we say, falsely inflated) else the system fails. As with monetary currency, so with natural currency. Only as we know, natural degradation enjoys no quick bailout. As the midrash in Kohelet tells us: "Upon showing Adam around the garden of Eden, God offers a warning: 'Be careful to tend well to this earth. For if you destroy it, there will be no one after you to set it right.'"
3) the ethics of managing, investing and growing the value and volume of currency is something we understand
Currency is not to be squandered but neither is it meant to sit idle. Currency is meant to be used, put to work to improve the lot of humankind. To be used well, it needs to be both protected and worked. That is the charge of the human in Genesis 2, the reason given for why humanity was created: l'ovdah u'l'shomrah, to till and to tend the garden (the earth). Natural resources, like any sacred currency, is to be tilled, worked, invested, so that it can create the value and goods that we need and desire. But at the same time, with the same passion and due diligence, it needs to be protected, cherished and preserved so that it not be wasted or destroyed.
Sacred currency is like a trust fund, money in the bank. To grow and not lose value, it must be invested and minded well. But it must also be guarded against looting, loss and unwise investment. Our task regarding the natural world, as regarding any sacred currency, is to live well with the resources on hand, and invest them well so that both we and our children and our children's children can thrive on its value.
(The converse is also true: behavior shapes attitude, that is, what we do shapes what we believe. The two are interdependent; chicken and egg. For now, however, I focus on the attitude as the cause.)
It is not much contested that the western, industrial world sees nature as a commodity, something, gratefully, put here to fill our needs and fulfill our desires. When mined, captured, gathered, contained and pressed into the service of humankind, natural resources become satisfiers - products that satisfy our various needs and appetites. We have no particular affection or connection to them beyond the experience of our using them. They are to be bought and sold, interchanged with other commodities that can also satisfy us. And when we are done with them, we throw them away.
But this commodity attitude is taking us to a dead end. Literally. In a world of limited natural resources but infinite appetite and needs, both spiritual and physical, we cannot afford to squandor the stuff of the earth. Nothing should be indiscriminately and profligately used, and used up, and nothing can be thrown away. As I wrote elsewhere, the very concept of waste is unnatural. It is a human conceit that lies outside the domain and processes of the natural world, treif. Nature knows no waste. Everything returns, recycles, re-engages. There is no "away". There is no "there". When something is finished and used up, it is just the beginning of a new round.
The dispassionate commodity attitude of procurement, production, consumption and disposal does not jibe with the natural world, and indeed is becoming its undoing.
What then should be a contemporary attitude toward the natural world that both honors the ways of the earth and affords the means and vocabulary of contemporary society?
I would like to suggest we find the answer in the phrase: "sacred currency." For several reasons:
1) nature is the "currency" with which God and the Jewish people communicate to each other.
2) currency is a concept readily integrated into the contemporary mind
3) the ethics of managing, investing and growing the value and volume of currency is something we understand
Let me explain each one a bit more.
1) Nature is the "currency" with which God and the Jewish people communicate to each other.
There is the pesky question of how the presence of God - immaterial, infinite, discernable only by a sixth sense and not the five with which we are physically endowed - becomes present to us clod-bound humans. Not only how do we sense God, but how, as it were, can God talk to us, intersect physically with us?
Tanakh in general, and Torah in particular, answer this in a most direct way: through the physical, natural world. Among the many places we see this in Torah is the following one, in which Moses, upon the eve of his death, adjures his precious but feisty people to be faithful to God and the covenant (Deuteronomy 28):
"All these blessings will come upon you and accompany you if you obey the LORD your God:
You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country.
The fruit of your womb will be blessed, and the crops of your land and the young of your livestock—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.
Your basket and your kneading trough will be blessed.
You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out.
The LORD will send a blessing on your barns and on everything you put your hand to. The LORD your God will bless you in the land he is giving you.
The LORD will grant you abundant prosperity — in the fruit of your womb, the young of your livestock and the crops of your ground — in the land he swore to your forefathers to give you. The LORD will open the heavens, the storehouse of his bounty, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations but will borrow from none."
The blessings, and the communication, between God and the people Israel (and by extension all humanity), are couched in terms of the fertility and productivity of the land, or, in contrast, the failure and impoverishment of the land.
Land, rain, natural resources, become the currency of exchange between God and Israel. God gives us the resources to thrive and we in turn take portions of that abundance to the Temple to give back to God.
To speak of our natural resources as currency instead of commodity, then, re-enchants the physical world for us, evoking the sacred and awesome sense that the physical world held for our ancestors.
2) currency is a concept readily integrated into the contemporary mind
Currency is a shared medium of exchange, a common way for us to meet each others' needs. It assumes movement, fluidity, change. But unlike commodity, it does not expect to be used up or consumed. Modernity understands that things have costs, and that the shapes and constitution of things may change. But fundamentally, value remains, and must not get degraded (or, dare we say, falsely inflated) else the system fails. As with monetary currency, so with natural currency. Only as we know, natural degradation enjoys no quick bailout. As the midrash in Kohelet tells us: "Upon showing Adam around the garden of Eden, God offers a warning: 'Be careful to tend well to this earth. For if you destroy it, there will be no one after you to set it right.'"
3) the ethics of managing, investing and growing the value and volume of currency is something we understand
Currency is not to be squandered but neither is it meant to sit idle. Currency is meant to be used, put to work to improve the lot of humankind. To be used well, it needs to be both protected and worked. That is the charge of the human in Genesis 2, the reason given for why humanity was created: l'ovdah u'l'shomrah, to till and to tend the garden (the earth). Natural resources, like any sacred currency, is to be tilled, worked, invested, so that it can create the value and goods that we need and desire. But at the same time, with the same passion and due diligence, it needs to be protected, cherished and preserved so that it not be wasted or destroyed.
Sacred currency is like a trust fund, money in the bank. To grow and not lose value, it must be invested and minded well. But it must also be guarded against looting, loss and unwise investment. Our task regarding the natural world, as regarding any sacred currency, is to live well with the resources on hand, and invest them well so that both we and our children and our children's children can thrive on its value.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Generativity and the Jewish covenant
I just finished looking through a book called The Redemptive Self: stories Americans live by, by Dan McAdams. It is an effort to understand a bit of Americana, what makes us tick, through the stories we tell ourselves.
McAdams speaks in one section of the book about Erik Erikson's concept of generativity. While I have not studied Erikson and had not heard this term before, it is somewhat intuitive to the Jewish spirit (once it is explained). In short, generativity is defined as "the concern for and commitment to promoting the well-being and development of future generations." But more than a concept, it is, according to Erikson and McAdams, an altruistic way of framing the meaning of one's life. In the context of the theme of the book, McAdams writes: "When they take stock of their own lives, highly generative American adults tend to narrate them around the theme of redemption." Jews might call it a sacred way of framing our historic narrative. Summed up, that narrative says life is a gift and a challenge. Despite all the pains and troubles, life can get better, and it is up to us make it so.
Our sacred narrative speaks of generativity in at least two ways: (1)dor va'dor, for all generations, and (2) our inter-generational covenant at Sinai and renewed on the eastern shore of the Jordan River.
(1) The very way we refer to ourselves and God, the very way we open our central prayer, the Amidah, conjures up this inter-generational tie: our God and God of our ancestors, Abraham (and Sarah), Isaac (and Rebecca), Jacob (and Leah and Rachel). We are the children of Israel. Our covenant with God, the land and each other is made through and across the generations. It is almost impossible to speak in the first person singular as a Jew. We are situated, each of us, in the vast presence of each other.
(2) Deuteronomy 29: 6-14 lays out the covenant that binds one generation to the next:
"You stand this day," Moses calls to the Jewish people, in his final speech before his death, "all of you, before the Lord your God - your tribal heads, your elders and your officials, all the men of Israel, your children, your wives, even the stranger within your camp, from woodchopper to waterdrawer - to enter into the covenant of the Lord your God, which the Lord your God is concluding with you this day, with its sanctions; to the end that He may establish you this day as His people and be your God, as He promised you and as He swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I make this covenant, with its sanctions, not with you alone, but both with those who are standing here with us this day before the Lord our God and with those who are not with us here this day."
We know that our covenant with God is not with us alone. We have inherited it from the earliest days of our ancestors, and we are the transmitters and caretakers of it to our children. But what the poetry of this text teaches us is that the covenant is not to be seen as a holding that passes sequentially, and temporarily, from this generation to the next; but rather that at all times, in all places, all Jews are members of this covenant. Simultaneously. We were, as the midrash says, all present at Sinai. And we all make claims on the covenant today.
This has grand implications for what we do to the earth on our watch. Our children, and those of all others, can make a claim against us if we damage the resources they need to live, for they are co-beneficiaries right now no less than we are.
What if we were to imagine, then, as we make our way through our daily lives, that our unborn grandchildren, as adults, are by our side? What if they were witness to our deeds today, and could see how our deeds affected them tomorrow? And what if they could, at the moment we made our choices, at the moment of our actions, show us the impact of our deeds, and how they judge us? In their presence, looking into their eyes, how would we choose to act now?
McAdams speaks in one section of the book about Erik Erikson's concept of generativity. While I have not studied Erikson and had not heard this term before, it is somewhat intuitive to the Jewish spirit (once it is explained). In short, generativity is defined as "the concern for and commitment to promoting the well-being and development of future generations." But more than a concept, it is, according to Erikson and McAdams, an altruistic way of framing the meaning of one's life. In the context of the theme of the book, McAdams writes: "When they take stock of their own lives, highly generative American adults tend to narrate them around the theme of redemption." Jews might call it a sacred way of framing our historic narrative. Summed up, that narrative says life is a gift and a challenge. Despite all the pains and troubles, life can get better, and it is up to us make it so.
Our sacred narrative speaks of generativity in at least two ways: (1)dor va'dor, for all generations, and (2) our inter-generational covenant at Sinai and renewed on the eastern shore of the Jordan River.
(1) The very way we refer to ourselves and God, the very way we open our central prayer, the Amidah, conjures up this inter-generational tie: our God and God of our ancestors, Abraham (and Sarah), Isaac (and Rebecca), Jacob (and Leah and Rachel). We are the children of Israel. Our covenant with God, the land and each other is made through and across the generations. It is almost impossible to speak in the first person singular as a Jew. We are situated, each of us, in the vast presence of each other.
(2) Deuteronomy 29: 6-14 lays out the covenant that binds one generation to the next:
"You stand this day," Moses calls to the Jewish people, in his final speech before his death, "all of you, before the Lord your God - your tribal heads, your elders and your officials, all the men of Israel, your children, your wives, even the stranger within your camp, from woodchopper to waterdrawer - to enter into the covenant of the Lord your God, which the Lord your God is concluding with you this day, with its sanctions; to the end that He may establish you this day as His people and be your God, as He promised you and as He swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I make this covenant, with its sanctions, not with you alone, but both with those who are standing here with us this day before the Lord our God and with those who are not with us here this day."
We know that our covenant with God is not with us alone. We have inherited it from the earliest days of our ancestors, and we are the transmitters and caretakers of it to our children. But what the poetry of this text teaches us is that the covenant is not to be seen as a holding that passes sequentially, and temporarily, from this generation to the next; but rather that at all times, in all places, all Jews are members of this covenant. Simultaneously. We were, as the midrash says, all present at Sinai. And we all make claims on the covenant today.
This has grand implications for what we do to the earth on our watch. Our children, and those of all others, can make a claim against us if we damage the resources they need to live, for they are co-beneficiaries right now no less than we are.
What if we were to imagine, then, as we make our way through our daily lives, that our unborn grandchildren, as adults, are by our side? What if they were witness to our deeds today, and could see how our deeds affected them tomorrow? And what if they could, at the moment we made our choices, at the moment of our actions, show us the impact of our deeds, and how they judge us? In their presence, looking into their eyes, how would we choose to act now?
Sunday, November 8, 2009
More thoughts on Sova (enoughness)
I am almost finished reading Michael Pollan's book In Defense of Food, and if you filter out his occasionally pedantic and patronizing attitude, the book is a worthwhile read. Its title really is a summary of his thesis: that what we eat today is not so much food (by which he means the stuff that grows and is naturally produced) but rather the pulled-apart, reduced, processed, fortified and reconstituted stuff that we eat in the place of food. He is encouraging us to eat more food, the kind you get from the farmer's market, the kind your grandparents and great-grandparents recognized.
The history of the move from food to foodstuff, from food embedded in folkways to food as a nutrition-delivery system, is fascinating. Explaining that is a large portion of his book. But I want to focus here on three take-aways that I found compelling.
The first is the exploration of the question: How do Americans decide when to stop eating? That is, at what point do we say, I have had enough. To set the stage for the answer, first consider how the French respond: "When I am full." Reasonable enough. But the fact is that we Americans often gobble down our food faster than our bodies can process our fullness. Which means that our sated signal is delayed. We are often full well before we feel full. So we keep eating.
At any rate, "When I am full" is not the answer we give. How, then, do we decide when to stop eating? "When my plate is empty", we answer, or "When we run out of food." That is, while the French use internal sensors or markers to determine satiety (sova), Americans use external sensors.
It occurred to me that if, regarding the most personal, physical and individualized matter of appetite, ie, hunger and fullness, we rely on external signals of sova, then of course we are likely to use external sensors for those most public aspects of appetite, ie, conspicuous possession and consumption of goods. That has enormous implications for those of us who seek to build a society based on the spiritual ethic of sova, enoughness.
We need to ask: what are those sensors, regarding physical, economic and spiritual hunger, that let us know that we are satisfied? What signals, what sense of fullness do we use, and which ones would be best for us to use? The answer to this question can unlock the door to a new, just and vibrant economy, one that fulfills our physical and spiritual needs, assuring the fullness of each and the well-being of all. I will tackle this question in a future blog.
But let me continue to share the two other main take-aways I found in Pollan's book:
Put simply he suggests the following: cook more and eat meals (sitting at a table that is set, preferably with others). Which is to say, the ways our foods are prepared and eaten are as important to our health as the food itself.
Food satisfaction is only partly fulfilled by the taste, nutrients and calories we consume. Food consumption is a cycle of preparation (planning, buying, patchke-ing,cooking); eating (hopefully with companionship, which itself is a word that means sharing bread); and post-prandial moments (sitting, chatting, resting, cleaning up). All this combines to shape our responses to food. When we deprive ourselves of most of the components of this system, the burden of food pleasure falls upon the food itself, partly the taste (augmented these days by fats and sugars) and largely the volume.
When we cook, we tend to use and make healthier, less-processed food. And we tend to eat more sensibly.
Even more, when we eat at a meal, we tend to eat more slowly, more mindfully, and less, all the while feeling more satisfied. Food at meals tends to satisfy more than our nutritional needs, although it may also do that better than grazing or snacking all day.
Essentially, what Pollan is saying is that food is a system, both in the way it delivers its nutrients and nourishment, and in the way it feeds our spirit.
Recalibrating our approach to food to return to and accommodate these systems will be good for our bodies, our spirits and the environment. Seems irresistible.
But there is the matter of time. Making time to make food and to eat food, together at a meal, will take a small revolution. That, then, is next our job.
The history of the move from food to foodstuff, from food embedded in folkways to food as a nutrition-delivery system, is fascinating. Explaining that is a large portion of his book. But I want to focus here on three take-aways that I found compelling.
The first is the exploration of the question: How do Americans decide when to stop eating? That is, at what point do we say, I have had enough. To set the stage for the answer, first consider how the French respond: "When I am full." Reasonable enough. But the fact is that we Americans often gobble down our food faster than our bodies can process our fullness. Which means that our sated signal is delayed. We are often full well before we feel full. So we keep eating.
At any rate, "When I am full" is not the answer we give. How, then, do we decide when to stop eating? "When my plate is empty", we answer, or "When we run out of food." That is, while the French use internal sensors or markers to determine satiety (sova), Americans use external sensors.
It occurred to me that if, regarding the most personal, physical and individualized matter of appetite, ie, hunger and fullness, we rely on external signals of sova, then of course we are likely to use external sensors for those most public aspects of appetite, ie, conspicuous possession and consumption of goods. That has enormous implications for those of us who seek to build a society based on the spiritual ethic of sova, enoughness.
We need to ask: what are those sensors, regarding physical, economic and spiritual hunger, that let us know that we are satisfied? What signals, what sense of fullness do we use, and which ones would be best for us to use? The answer to this question can unlock the door to a new, just and vibrant economy, one that fulfills our physical and spiritual needs, assuring the fullness of each and the well-being of all. I will tackle this question in a future blog.
But let me continue to share the two other main take-aways I found in Pollan's book:
Put simply he suggests the following: cook more and eat meals (sitting at a table that is set, preferably with others). Which is to say, the ways our foods are prepared and eaten are as important to our health as the food itself.
Food satisfaction is only partly fulfilled by the taste, nutrients and calories we consume. Food consumption is a cycle of preparation (planning, buying, patchke-ing,cooking); eating (hopefully with companionship, which itself is a word that means sharing bread); and post-prandial moments (sitting, chatting, resting, cleaning up). All this combines to shape our responses to food. When we deprive ourselves of most of the components of this system, the burden of food pleasure falls upon the food itself, partly the taste (augmented these days by fats and sugars) and largely the volume.
When we cook, we tend to use and make healthier, less-processed food. And we tend to eat more sensibly.
Even more, when we eat at a meal, we tend to eat more slowly, more mindfully, and less, all the while feeling more satisfied. Food at meals tends to satisfy more than our nutritional needs, although it may also do that better than grazing or snacking all day.
Essentially, what Pollan is saying is that food is a system, both in the way it delivers its nutrients and nourishment, and in the way it feeds our spirit.
Recalibrating our approach to food to return to and accommodate these systems will be good for our bodies, our spirits and the environment. Seems irresistible.
But there is the matter of time. Making time to make food and to eat food, together at a meal, will take a small revolution. That, then, is next our job.
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