The Motivation to Feed Others
Feeding people is not only a physical act that nourishes the body, but a spiritual act that nourishes the heart and soul. It is love embodied. It is the heart that desires to give and the hands that desire to serve connecting. It is one of the most basic ways of expressing love.
We feed people within our families without hesitating, because we understand that this is so. We understand our responsibility to help sustain their lives. We accept the responsibility for nurturing children so they can grow and thrive. This sense of responsibility is what is greatly needed in the world, just as it is within families – to feed others so that they can grow and thrive.
There is great joy in feeding people. There is love that can expand the heart so that one feels nourished oneself through the act of giving. There is a unity that can take place with the Heart of the universe which opens when we seek to nurture and bless others.
Yet, physical food is only one layer of feeding others. The spiritual food that emanates from our love is the foundational layer of the physical. It is a love that seeks to replenish itself and to expand. It is a love that rejoices in the act of sustaining and nurturing another’s life.
Am I my brother’s keeper?
Some of us are ready to do this. Some of us are not. But all are capable of understanding that the expression of love and of nurturance toward the rest of life is why we are here. There is no one, not even the poorest of the poor, who cannot rejoice in the sharing of food. From time immemorial this has been so because it is written in the human heart. It is written in this heart that knows the Divine within itself, that when asked “Am I my brother’s keeper?” that the answer is “yes.”
What applies to individuals and their motives applies to nations and their motives as well. For the collective will of nations united with the same purpose of sustaining all could effectively eliminate the large areas of hunger that the world now takes for granted. It is not difficult to do so, but the consciousness of ‘national self-interest’ that ignores the interests of the rest of the world must change.
There are global organizations that we know of that have undertaken this effort to support humanity’s food needs. There are governmental and private foundations that distribute food to those who are greatly deprived. But these only address the tip of the problem rather than the underlying source which is separateness – the sense that one only needs to care for oneself and one’s intimate circle of loved ones.
The human heart aches to see this change, but it does not know that it is contributing to the status quo. It must see this. It must learn this – that to end the problem of world hunger one must become a citizen of the world. Nations must come together. The heart of nations must no longer be vying with each other for goals that exist at the expense of others. We do not desire to live in a world that takes action at the expense of others, and yet we are doing it as nations and within our own lives as well.
To unite the world in addressing the problem of hunger, the practical policy making decisions must follow the spiritual motivation. It must take down the barriers between ‘I’ and ‘Thou’, so that the desire strengthens that all be fed. Many have expressed great courage in attempting to do this, but more must be done. The will to have ‘more’ for oneself must be replaced by the will to have more for all.
This is the time we are in, the time of transition into greater unity, out of which caring for the world’s food needs can come. This is the time in which each heart is being called to become ‘their brother’s and sister’s keeper,’ and the effect of this will see a world made new, with a capacity to cherish every life that lives upon the Earth.
