I Am Hungry

Of the many commercials that air on TV, I find two emotionally challenging. One of them is about hungry children in underdeveloped countries. The other one is about hungry abandoned pets. The message about these two commercials is simple: your donation and mine would provide the food hungry children and abandoned pets need.

We can argue that the commercials are meant to play on our emotions and motivate us to donate, but the real point is, if you have felt the ache of hunger before or have felt a deep hunger for connection before, then you would most likely understand what the children and the pets may be going through.

I have been hungry before. There have been times in my life when I have been hungry for food - just food to eat. Those were not days when, amid abundance, I had to starve myself; those were times when there was nothing to eat. In fact, there were days when my mother would ask us to fast, not for any particular spiritual or religious purpose but because she had no money to get food for her children.

To satisfy the deep hunger, I would often walk to a friend’s house or to a relative’s house to find myself something to eat. That was when my hunger became unbearable.

In the most sincere way, I identify with the hungry children we all see on TV. I identify with the hungry children and families that we support in our local schools. I identify with the hungry and homeless that we feed at the Dorsey Resource Center. I identify with the hungry and abandoned families that rely on Community Action Care. I even identify with those abandoned pets who were once used to provide comfort and connection to their owners.

Until recently, I didn’t know that the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert in Southern Africa speak of two kinds of hunger. Little Hunger and Great Hunger.

Little Hunger is the hunger that we all feel in our stomachs - the kind that was so unbearable that to deal with it, I had to go to someone else’s house to grab food to eat. Little hunger is the hunger many in our community feel due to the rising cost of living and affordability challenges. Little hunger is the kind of hunger that makes us want to fill our bellies with food.

Great Hunger is the kind of hunger that isn’t satisfied materially. No amount of food can satisfy that kind of hunger. It is the hunger for meaning. It is the hunger that yearns for belonging. It is the hunger that yearns for purpose. It is the hunger for connection. It is the hunger for community.

You have heard it said that ‘No man is an island.’ Regardless of gender, we all need connection and community. You have also heard it said that ‘It takes a village.’ It is true - it takes the collective effort of all of us to create communities of meaning and purpose.

It seems to me that it is only when we create those communities where no man is an island and where we each believe in the village's values that we can eradicate Little Hunger. That is to say that when our efforts are geared towards creating meaning and purpose, or building communities of purpose and meaning, there will be no hunger among us.

One of the important lessons from the Old Testament was that after harvest, farmers were encouraged to leave some of their produce on their farms for the poor, widows, and orphans. It seems to me that what the Old Testament is teaching us is that for us to deal with Little Hunger, we should first deal with Great Hunger.

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Great Hunger makes us desire communities of connection and creates an unbelievable sense of awareness that we are not an island unto ourselves.

Truth is, I am not the only hungry person; we are all hungry. We are hungry for food, we are hungry for connection, and we are hungry for meaning. When we cast our eyes across our world, all we see is a world suffering from both Little Hunger and Great Hunger. There are millions who hunger for food. And there are millions who hunger for connection, meaning, and purpose.

As a faith community, we are always working to create opportunities for people to overcome their Great Hunger and connect with others. When I think about our multiple Sunday worship offerings and other gatherings - the Center for Spiritual Nourishment, Theology On Tap, Women of Christ Church, Men of Christ Church, Youth Ministries, among many others - what I see in each one is opportunities for helping us overcome our Great Hunger.

One profound thought is that when we share the Peace of Christ with each other during worship, we are not simply shaking hands and talking about lunch and other things about life. All that we are doing is creating and building connections with each other and saying to the other that we are now at peace because God, through Christ, is at peace with us.

I sincerely believe that the Christ through whom God offers us God’s peace is the same Christ who will go to any extent to take Manna as his name. After all, he is the bread from heaven, the only bread that satisfies not only our Little Hunger but our Great Hunger.

I once heard someone say that ‘Water has no effect on fake flowers.’ And that is indeed true. You can pour as much water on fake flowers as you want, and it won’t make any difference. But if, as a community and world, we work to water genuine flowers while building authentic connections with each other, there is no doubt in my mind that we would satisfy our deepest hunger and the world’s deepest hunger.

It seems to me that it is only when we deal with our Great Hunger that we can deal with the Little Hunger.

How hungry are you? I am very hungry. But this time, I hope to be fed with something more than jollof rice. I hope to be fed with the Manna - Christ himself.



I am hungry.

May you be hungry, too. 



Manny+