Daily Dose (June 3 – 6)
TUESDAY JUNE 3 —
In our world, suffering and heartbreak are real. Yes, linked to real people. With names and faces. But what can we do?
It begins here: Faithfulness—I choose. Skin in the game. This moment matters.
This all comes to life for me in the heartening and uplifting book, “Change the Recipe”, by Jose Andres. The World Central Kitchen shows up in places of the world where disaster has been real, and discouragement has been pushed to the brink.
And gratefully, heartwarmingly, people step up.
One meal at a time.
“That’s the idea behind World Central Kitchen,” Jose writes. “It doesn’t sit in one building, or one book. It’s a spirit in missions of people: if something happens, you step up and say, ‘here I am. Let me help.’ That’s it. Nothing more, nothing less. That’s the spirit of our army of small donors, in our army of chefs and volunteers, in the food trucks and drivers, in our suppliers and logistics.”
In the book, he tells the story about people stepping up after a hurricane.
“When Hurricane Maria devasted Puerto Rico in 2017, I knew I had no choice. These islands had been calling to me for so many years…
It was time to show what we could do after a disaster, as cooks helping people in desperate need.
I arrived with my friend Nate Mook, carrying not much more than a backpack and some cash. We headed straight for the two places I knew could help: a local food warehouse and the restaurant of Jose Enrique Montes. Jose’s restaurant had been wrecked by the storm, and his refrigerated food was going to waste because there was no power. So he did what any chef would do: he started cooking. That hearty, tasty soup he made, called ‘sancocho’, was the start of the transformation of our humanitarian work.
I always dreamed of creating a real-world version of the fairy-tale pot that could feed the world: an infinite supply of goodness that would end hunger for everyone. There, in the middle of San Juan’s old town, that fish stew—a distant relative of the Spanish cocido—was my dream come true.
The official situation was catastrophic. I called my wife and said, ‘I don’t think I’m coming back home.’ The Salvation Army was calling me asking for food. The Red Cross didn’t have any kitchens. I asked everybody, ‘What exactly is your plan to feed people?’ They said they were working on the plan. I said, ‘You know you have over two million people who are hungry right now?’ The official response was to sit in meetings and do nothing. It’s analysis paralysis: when a plan falls apart, people worry about the plan, not the reality. People who are hungry need feeding yesterday. Not in a week or a month. They need what Martin Luther King Jr. called ‘the fierce urgency of now.’
I’ll be honest. The group who met at Jose Enrique’s thought I was crazy… The goal was to feed first and ask questions later…
I had to look strong in front of my people, but inside I felt weak. I actually didn’t know how we were going to take care of everyone, or how we would pay for everything…
But people believe in what we were doing. They know how much hunger there was on the islands. What they needed was someone to believe in them, to see them, to prioritize them, to not take no for an answer.
So we started cooking a few hundred meals. Then a few thousand…”
(From Change the Recipe, Jose Andres)
I love the beginning of that last paragraph. “So, we started…”
Yes, I begin where I am. “‘Here I am. Let me help.’ That’s it. Nothing more, nothing less.”
WEDNESDAY JUNE 4 — I’m remembering a scene from (one of my favorite TV series) The West Wing. The episode when Josh is navigating Post Traumatic Stress, and life (internally and literally) for him, is on edge.
Leo tells Josh this story; “This guy’s walking down the street when he falls in a hole. The walls are so steep he can’t get out.
A doctor passes by and the guy shouts up, ‘Hey you. Can you help me out?’ The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down in the hole and moves on.
Then a priest comes along, and the guy shouts up, ‘Father, I’m down in this hole can you help me out?’ The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole and moves on.
Then a friend walks by, ‘Hey, Joe, it’s me can you help me out?’
And the friend jumps in the hole. Our guy says, ‘Are you stupid? Now we’re both down here.’
The friend says, ‘Yeah, but I’ve been down here before and I know the way out.’”
It begins here: Faithfulness—meaning, I choose to put skin in the game. Because this moment matters, and this gift of faithfulness is grounded in the assurance that we are on this journey together.
Mother Teresa’s reminder, “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”
So, this week we can reaffirm the Irish proverb, “It is in the shelter of each other that the people live.” Meaning that presence and attention is our currency. Why? Because real life happens in the present, and in the Presence.
In other words, there is no need to keep score.
Grace walks into our lives like this. It doesn’t always come in big ways or obvious miracles. Sometimes it’s just someone acknowledging our pain. It isn’t always a complete removal “from the pit”. Sometimes it’s just someone coming into the pit and spending some time with us or seeing that we need some sort of help and getting it without us asking. And sometimes, we get to be that someone, who makes space for presence, and sanctuary and healing.
Gratefully, no one of us is on this journey alone.
Here’s the deal: Where there is a place to be seen, to be heard, to be valued, sanctuary is real, and healing happens.
Healing happens when we allow ourselves to receive love, compassion and kindness without suspicion.
Healing happens when we are free to embrace an extraordinary core of strength and courage that resides inside of us… and without even realizing it, let it spill to those around us.
St. Bartholomew’s reminder is apropos, “Many of us spend our whole lives running from feelings with the mistaken belief that you cannot bear the pain. But you have already borne the pain. What you have not done is feel all you are, beyond the pain.”
On the golf course today, a young coyote came out onto the fairway, to pounce on the golf ball I had hit. I’ve had this happen before and it does my heart good. He looks up at me, waiting for me to “throw” another ball his way. So, I hit another, and then another. We had a good time playing together.
THURSDAY JUNE 5 — It begins here: Faithfulness—meaning, I choose to put skin in the game.
And for me, the garden is my teacher. People who love this world, people who pay attention—put skin in the game—are gardeners, whether or not they have ever picked up a trowel. Because gardening is not just about digging. Gardening is about cherishing. And to cherish, one must be present. Or planting for that matter.
In my book Soul Gardening, I try to explain to people about the dramatic change that happened in my life. Emphasis upon my life. I had no intention of creating a paradigm or a new seminar on life reconstruction. Truth is, one day, quite by happenstance, I planted a flower.
As the flower grew, I began to feel something come alive in my own skin. I would go out at weird hours of the day and night, just to fuss over the flower. I dug in the dirt to the let flower breathe. I planted other flowers to give the flower friends. And I surprised myself by crying when one of the flowers died for no apparent reason.
I caught myself humming odd melodies from my childhood, blushing, wondering if anyone heard me. As the flowers continued to grow, I took a chair out and sat in the garden just to keep them company. I would tell the flowers funny stories and laugh out loud into the evening sky. A strange grin spread across my face as I realized what was happening. I felt at home.
The months went on. I planted more flowers. I planted vegetables and trees. I brought guests to my garden just to see them smile.
I watched my garden grow, I fussed and frittered. I dug and danced. I came face to face with a part of myself that had been missing. And I liked what I saw.
With the gift of grace, there is no check list, save allowing the healing places to work their magic. If I’m only focused only on the payoff (destination), I miss the gifts on the journey, the gifts of daily choices… And I miss the gift of enough.
The garden put me in a frame of mind where I could hear and see and feel again, as if some part of me that had ossified came back to life. Amen to “faithfulness”.
I cannot say with certainty that I heard God’s voice (for I’m not sure what that voice would sound like, were I to hear it), but I suspect that God was the one who planted the seed to begin with, and was watching over me while that seed took root. For in the garden I found, in the words of Quaker teacher Thomas Kelly in A Testament of Devotion, the “amazing inner sanctuary of the soul, a holy place, a Divine Center, a speaking Voice.”
Sitting in the garden, the Shasta Daisy would care less about my pedigree, which in turn serves as the perfect metaphor for God’s grace—an altogether difficult lesson to swallow in a world where all of our encounters seem like contests, where only the winner is granted the right to move on.
FRIDAY JUNE 6 — It begins here: Faithfulness—meaning, I choose to put skin in the game.
And one more story from Jose Andres—founder of World Central Kitchen—about skin in the game, one meal at a time. This from his book, Change the Recipe.
“I don’t go to every emergency where people need feeding. But over the last fifteen years, I show up to the hurricanes that are category four or higher and other major catastrophes. It’s not the number of people affected that shapes my decision; it’s the percentage of people affected in one community. When I go, I try to be a voice of wisdom in the ears of the young Jedi warriors who joined my organization on missions past and present. I have the feeling the same type of people show up in different situations, with different names and faces. It doesn’t matter what they are called or where they are from: these souls keep popping up in many places. They have the same spirit, the same energy, the same traits. In Ukraine, Guatemala, wherever. They are different people, but the same souls that seem to keep going from mission to mission…
What mattered was that they had the will to serve the people—that’s what made them successful.
Maybe being an event planner can help a little. But another time it can be the DJ of a discotheque. Another time it can be a guy who repairs cars. Another time it can be a restaurant owner, a restaurant manager. Or a priest. Another time it can be the dishwasher. You never know when you’re going to be finding the people who lead, and the most unexpected leadership shows up.
That’s why I don’t like to ask people, What did you do in your previous life? I only want to see what they are doing now. Do they care? Do they help an elderly woman walk across the street? Do they carry a box to give to the people? Those are maybe small details, but those to me are the gestures that tell me that the person is the right person for the moment…
With a strong team of soulmates, you can do amazing things. What you need to do is find those people, and build that team—the rest will look after itself. Don’t worry about looking for them. These kinds of people have a way of finding you, because they want to help their own community.”
“That’s the idea behind World Central Kitchen,” Jose writes. “It doesn’t sit in one building, or one book. It’s a spirit in missions of people: if something happens, you step up and say, ‘here I am. Let me help.’ That’s it. Nothing more, nothing less.”
No matter where we are, my friends, “one meal at a time”.
And here’s the good news; once you put skin in the game, you keep seeing and finding ways to spill light wherever you are. Mother Teresa’s wonderful affirmation, “If I had not picked up that first person dying on the street, I would not have picked up the thousands of others later on.”
So. Here I am.
Let me help.
It’s the one thing I could do.
Prayer for our week…
When the world feels hopeless and heartless,
take a moment to look around.
There are beautiful humans everywhere,
often hiding in plain sight in cabs,
on buses, in cafes, on trains, in libraries,
on park benches, in laundromats, on subways.
They may not be rich or well-educated.
They may be broken and hurting themselves.
They may not have much to offer
in terms of worldly goods.
But they are the comforters, encouragers, sharers,
teachers, servers, healers, mentors, connecters,
helpers, and counselors who keep
the random hurting humans,
the weary and the lost,
the invisible sufferers who walk among us every day,
going just long enough
to find their hope and strength again.
It doesn’t take a degree or wealth
or a grand gesture to make a
difference in this world.
It just takes a human who cares.
L.R. Knost
Photo… “Springtime, Volunteer Park Conservatory (Botanical Garden, Seattle, WA),” Geri Hanley… Thank you Geri… and thank you for your photos, please send them to tdh@terryhershey.com
