Digestion

RantWoman notes that all of the following circumstances figured in her experience of this year's Annual Session for North Pacific Yearly Meeting:

Plenary discussions featured at least two readings of the minute which RantWoman now refers to as the overconsumption minute even though the overconsumption minute began life as the overpopulation minute. Bear with RantWoman if the relevance of this minute to the following is not immediately obvious.

Basically, RantWoman has been thinking that some of walking our talk about sustainability and walking more lightly on the earth is going to involve hard choices, inconvenience, and unpleasantness of various sorts. RantWoman frequently finds life as we know it now quite the spiritual exercise and is wondering what can be expected, what more might be required of her faith community, of people of faith in general as far as spiritual fortitude and grit in the face of difficulty. RantWoman proposes to start in the dining room at the recent NPYM Annual Session.

One of the recurring announcements RantWoman included in the Daily Bulletin related to how to find items that meet different people's vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free dietary needs. RantWoman first received the text of this announcement accompanied by cutesy graphics RantWoman could neither read nor reproduce. RantWoman reworded the announcement encouraging Friends just to use their words and ask; RantWoman never heard any complaints about this editorial diktat.

RantWoman sometimes hesitates to repeat direct quotes without specifically identifying their source. In this case, RantWoman is making an exception in profound gratitude for one Friend's years of humble and very expert service. This Friend remarked to RantWoman one night while RantWoman was putting the last touches on the Daily Bulletin that "I know really a lot about everyone's digestion and a lot les about people's gifts and talents." Everyone with digestion, whether or not the digestion comes with any special needs owes this Friend a huge debt of gratitude for her formidable, faithful, behind-the-scenes service. RantWoman is separately penning a rant about expressions of gratitude for movements of Spirit such as those embodied in this Friend's gifts.

Tending to the peculiarities of Friends' digestive needs, RantWoman also thinks that deep gratitude to the Creator, the food production and distribution system, agribusiness... for the vast abundance and variety of food choices available in the US. RantWoman thinks gratitude is in order, but she is also holding serious concern about

overabundance

rising rates of obesity around the world

maldistribution within and between geographical spaces as small as neighborhoods, not to mention cities and nations.

the perils of commodity agriculture and agricultural monoculture.

Okay, RantWoman is holding these concerns and will address them when she writes more of what is on her mind about the Overconsumption / overpopulation minute. In the meantime, RantWoman had plenty to do watching herself and others interact with the Annual Session dining experience.

Perhaps Friends should start from observing another group on campus at the same time as Annual Session, some kind of singing camp that featured different colored clumps of singers all wearing t-shirts the same color who met for different kinds of singing practice. RantWoman did not pay much attention to the name of the event or the organization sponsoring that gathering. RantWoman simply noted with appreciation that they took their singing seriously, did not rely on pitch by consensus and could even harmonize! This group ate lunch at the same time as Friends; this group also more than once responded to long lines and frustrating service by simply breaking into song. RantWoman wonders, What could Friends learn from these singing visitors' example?


Somewhere during RantWoman's summer camp experience, RantWoman found herself having sentimental thoughts about dining ast year at a meal with a Friend who joined his grandson in servings of seriously BLUE Jello, the sort of BLUE Jello which RantWoman who has no kids in her household would ONLY consume at gathering-sized dining experiences where there would probably be a critical mass of eaters not letting BLUE Jello go to waste.

RantWoman's appalling dietary indulgence during the same Annual Session was...pistachio pudding, the same gluey texture as almost all commercial pudding products but colored a lovely pale green and with chunks of pistachio added. At a couple meals RantWoman insisted on descrating some milk product, either yogurt or cottage cheese with a big dollop of pistachio pudding just to cut the overpowering sweetness of the pistachio pudding. RantWoman believes this year there may have been Jello in more conventional colors such as red or orange, but this year's dining experience was tragically deficient in blue Jello and pistachio pudding. That would be only the beginning.

In the course of registration, many Friends learned that the suggested amounts per meal were very generous and that most people would not spend all of the money they put on their meal cards. There is a sales tax savings associated with putting money on one's meal card rather than paying out of pocket but there is no way to get refunds of what one does not spend on one's meal card. Thus, while some Friends put the full amount suggested on their meal cards, many Friends put considerably less on their meal cards than the suggested amounts.

Here RantWoman is going to indulge in a moment of playing cafeteria manager: if RantWoman as cafeteria manager knew there were going to be a lot of people around who paid the full amount and had high expectations about service, RantWoman MIGHT take extra care to make sure there was adequate, well-trained staff and plenty of food; however, if there were going to be a lot of people cutting things closer to the bone, RantWoman would not necessarily staff up fully or pay attention to full inventory. Understand, RantWoman has NO information indicating that the cafeteria staff deliberately chose this approach. RantWoman is simply adding groundless speculation to the stew of other thoughts about the Annual Session dining experience.

The dining hall at Annual Session featured lots of different stations where people could order items a la carte. RantWoman is not really sure why it was the stations seemed consistently understaffed and frequently ran out of food. Hungry conference goers, both Friends and otherwise all tended to show up at meals, especially lunch at the same time so that there were extremely long lines. It was hard for anyone to maneuver. In past years there has been a tray carrier volunteer assignment and there seemed not to be any tray carriers in evidence, a point which proved extremely painful for some people with mobility issues. RantWoman of course is alo the sort of challenging presence who would not necessarily use the help fo a tray carrier even if one were available; RantWoman suspects she has a lot of company!

RantWoman had a certain amount of difficulty finding things she was thinking about consuming and really does not do well in lines in the first place. However, RantWoman managed to shift her timing, adjust her expectations and to cope with less exasperation than others expressed. Then RantWoman got to the part about trying to get around in the dining room: the dining room is lit by lights placed very efficiently to light the table of diners. However the height of these lights is such that it's almost excruciating for RantWoman to try to see anything while getting around. RantWoman managed to whine rather than ask for help but RantWoman feels entitled at least to comment on the issue.

After all the hassles with lines, poorly trained and inefficient summer staff, and running out of key items, lots of Friends who had unthinkingly put full price on their meal cards wound up with funds they were not going to use. RantWoman let one Friend with excess funds buy her dinner; this and a separate latte budget resulted in RantWoman eating well for 2/3 of the projected budget with $2 left on her card at the end of Annual Session. An alert Friend suggesting using leftover funds to stock up on items to be used by Junior Friends and Central Friends camp. RantWoman observed a lot of this happening and expects the cafeteria was very surprised suddenly to be running out of pre-packaged oatmeal, bottled juice, yogurt, and snack foods as well as pizzas suddenly ordered at the end of lunch on Sunday.

RantWoman was especially bemused by the packets of instant oatmeal: RantWoman really likes oatmeal, better than other forms of porridge. One of RantWoman's dining while blind vexations was that she could not actually find the packets of oatmeal until crates of them were getting carted out the door on Sunday. RantWoman is not sure the Junior Friends will fully appreciate the quantity of oatmeal accompanying them to camp, and RantWoman would have been happy to find some for herself on the days when the hot porridge pot featured some other kind of porridge. RantWoman managed to cope and to be glad not to have any worse problems.

RantWoman's other path to dining happiness involves daily consumption of legumes; RantWoman thinks making legumes available at least one meal a day in either hot or salad bar form really should not be difficult. RantWoman is joining the chorus of all the other complainers and indulging in a small amount of crabbiness about what seemed to be a deficit of legumes. RantWoman most assuredly could have worse problems and extends sincere regret to Friends who for various reasons more acutely felt other dietary deficits.

RantWoman also finds herself called to ask: did anyone truly not get enough to eat? Does anyone besides RantWoman wonder what spiritual lessons we are to seek from all of these circumstances? Or do we just join each ohter in line for lattes?