By Leslie Morgenson
Published in December 2004
A young sparrow, having fallen out of its’ nest sat in the parking lot of the library. I gently scooped it and set it under a nearby bush. Was I rescuing the little one or was I jeopardizing its chances of survival with my human touch? Our worlds being so dissimilar, I was uncomfortable with my meddling. This is often the dilemma we face with human “sparrows”. After being at St. John’s Kitchen for five years, I recently was granted my first opportunity to speak with a woman who ’til now has sought no interaction with me…but now she asked me to get her a cup of tea. Not the usual orange pekoe that is offered, but something soothing, “Lemon would be nice,” she said. The gap collapsed and the bridge between us now rests firmly but simply on a cup of tea with a little ceremony. Her life, similar to others at St. John’s Kitchen has unfolded in many tragedies and connecting with other people doesn’t make the tragedies stop. But it does allow for support and comfort along the human journey.
This is the ripened fruit harvested in community, which illustrates and encompasses much of what happens at St. John’s Kitchen on a functional level. The structural network of St. John’s Kitchen is the service of food, but functionally, it is a place of connection and engagement that requires relationships. Where it may require perhaps 15 people to prepare the meal, it takes the entire community of over 300 to care.
Generally, St. John’s Kitchen, to the public, is accepted as a place of food redistribution, but I don’t imagine the people of Waterloo Region imagine the delicate moments that transpire. They are, however plentiful because they demand nothing more than the rich but fragile simplicity of one “touching” another. “Love consists in this,” wrote German poet, Rainer Maria Rilke, “that two solitudes greet and touch and protect each other.” When all has been lost or taken away and a person is at their most vulnerable, nothing but grace steadfastly remains.
The state of having few material possessions has ironically, been purposeful to some of the more thoughtful living among us simply because of the clarity, the focus, the grace that cannot be grasped when possessions crowd out life itself. In simplicity then, appreciation of others, the sacred nature of the earth, and one’s sense of community are intensified. Philip Harnden (Journeys of Simplicity- Traveling Light), has compiled a list of those who carried few possessions: David with nothing more than a staff, a slingshot and five smooth stones, Ishmael, the narrator of Melville’s Moby Dick with “stuffed in an old carpet bag, a shirt or two,”, Henry David Thoreau, in his cabin at Walden Pond had three chairs, “one for solitude, two for friendship and three for society.” As though they had journeyed through time together they and many others seemed to agree that possessions cloud one’s perspective and get in the way of “touching” others. Certainly those who have been on a spiritual path seem to head toward the unencumbered life, as if to the purity of light itself. A juicy plum tastes more flavorful when you only have one to enjoy.
Uncluttered lives capture our attention, but only from afar. For those of us in the Western world, our possessions have become so important as to stand in the way of relationships with those who are without. It’s easier to think of St. John’s Kitchen in the structural sense of serving food, than the functional sense, talking with people when they are at their most desperate. At the tables in St. John’s Kitchen, the details, the complexities and the desperation of life are sorted out over and above the food.
I speak with people at St. John’s Kitchen who hold firmly to the belief that we rarely need “more than one of anything,” and sometimes not even one of something. Those who believe that exchange should only happen through a fair exchange of goods; and find it strange that money is used in trade when “Water is the only gold.” They question why our water is treated so carelessly when its rapid depletion might someday mean the end of civilization? These are the thoughts one might hear expressed at St. John’s Kitchen, from those who often carry nothing more than such thoughts. And more: a bicycle is sufficient transportation; a garden can be one’s food source, both of which encourage one’s self-sufficiency and reduce our dependence. Free from unnecessary possessions, free from vapid chatter, free to embrace simplicity and to embrace others.
Such lifestyle questions regarding what we possess and what we consume have been frequently asked in recent years by many including people at St. John’s Kitchen. The “Ecological Footprint” coined by William Rees (University of British Columbia) is a way to assess and educate each of us of our individual consumption and use of our planet. Each person can measure what stress we put on our planet through an examination of our daily spending, water usage, food consumption, garbage, and mode of transportation. Living a simple life, enabling us to appreciate and savour the fragile moments replete with meaning such as a long awaited request for lemon tea, has profound significance both individually and globally; spiritually and physically.
