It has been almost three years since the entire global creation care family mourned the loss of A Rocha leaders Chris and Susanna Naylor and Miranda Harris, wife of Peter Harris. But what a beautiful way to bring Miranda’s memory back to life in the pages of A Place at the Table, a new book set to be released by Hodder Faith on 18 October 2022.

Here is the publisher’s description:

Rooted in the story of the Christian environmental conservation charity, A Rocha, and the life of its late co-founder Miranda Harris, A PLACE AT THE TABLE: Faith, Hope and Hospitality (Hodder Faith, Oct. 18, 2022) is a profound reflection on hospitality and the transformative power of community.

Miranda Harris’s tragic death in 2019 sent a shockwave across the globe to those closest to her and the many who found her approach to hospitality and community a life-long inspiration. Her daughter Jo Swinney honors her mother’s dedication to a life of community and fellowship with A PLACE AT THE TABLE—pairing her own words with her mother’s writings and exploring how sharing food is at the heart of a shared life.

Lyrically written and structured around the shape of a meal, A PLACE AT THE TABLE explores the six parts of a meal:
•Hunger—a God-given gift reminding us to seek out what we need to live and experience joy
•Preparation—preparing our houses, ourselves and our food, and doing so with love
•Welcome—the biblical practice of hospitality and how it challenges us to open our hearts and homes to people very different from ourselves
•At the Table—how sharing meals forms relationships and the meaning and significance of community
•The Clean-Up—tending to the messiness of life: inner messes, outer messes, relational messes
•The Forever Feast—God’s promises for tomorrow foreshadowed today and loving God’s people in the waiting

With prayers, biblical examples and stories, and personal reflections A PLACE AT THE TABLE meditates on themes of belonging, loss and community and is an encouraging call to action to make hospitality a part of daily life.

More information and preorder links are here. But before you do that, spend a couple of minutes listening to Jo tell us how she discovered the unfinished manuscript in her Mum’s office:

Thank you, Jo, for helping us all to remember Miranda.

Five years after beginning the project, and two years after the first film was finished, the first instalment of Andrew Brumme’s pivotal film documentary series Taste and See is ready for viewing this weekend. Here at LWCCN we know Andrew quite well, and we love the idea of exploring food as a means of discovering and relating to God’s creation (and to God himself).

Having faced the same challenges many of us in the world of creation care have faced (“The mainstream distribution world thinks our project is “too spiritual“, but the religious distributors think we’re “not spiritual enough” for their niche audiences. We’ve been caught in the middle.”, says Andrew.) the project has decided to go straight to the audience – you and me.

We’ve posted the trailer below. Here’s how you can help the project:

1. Buy a Ticket for the Virtual Screening.*(see below) All tickets help, but if you can afford the higher level tickets you’ll contribute additional funds and get access to bonus content!
2. Make a financial gift to Taste and See, above and beyond your ticket cost, if you’re compelled to give even more to this vision.
3. Invite your friends and family who might be interested in Taste and See to participate in the virtual cinema event.

SPECIAL OPPORTUNITY FOR POLLINATOR READERS:

Recognizing that a US$20 ticket would be difficult for many of our readers to manage, the Taste and See project has made us the following offer: For every ticket purchased through the ticket links on this page, they will donate one free ticket to be made available to another LWCCN member on request. So if you are in a position to do so, do yourself and someone else a favor by buying a ticket. And if you would really like to see this film, but the ticket price is beyond your budget, send us a note with your particulars and we’ll reserve a ticket for you as they become available through the generosity of our other members.

If you’d like to read more, here’s an in-depth interview with Andrew.

***NOTE: The first event below starts tomorrow, 6 May!***

This fall UN Secretary General António Guterres is convening a global food systems summit (dates TBA).  Summit preparation is well underway. The vision and goals for the summit have been set, and 5 action tracks are working toward the summit.

To help prepare for the summit, the WEA has been working with several other religious organizations as part of the Food + Faith Coalition to develop 5 Food + Faith Dialogues based on the summit’s 5 action tracks. These dialogues have been designed in collaboration with the UN and the action track leaders, who sincerely want to receive the input of religious groups and organizations. This is the first step in LWCCN’s engagement with the UN Food Systems Summit where we will present our Christian views. 

The first Food + Faith Dialogue: Food Security, Access and Justice is May 6^th at 10 AM, EST (New York time). Please register at this link:

The other Food + Faith Dialogues are on May 13, May 20, May 27, and June 3.  To learn more, and register for all 5 Food + Faith Dialogues, go to this link.

A LWCCN UN Food Systems Summit Working Group to be convened in June. Further information will be announced in June’s Pollinator. If this is of interest please send us an email.

This picture of an excavator bravely attempting to free the giant Ever-Given from the sand of the Suez Canal last week is a parable for humanity’s dilemma when it comes to controlling the technological forces we’ve let loose in God’s creation.

To read more, check out this article from Yale Climate Connections…

A critical global shipping node – Egypt’s Suez Canal – was reopened on Monday, March 29, six days after being shut down when the 400-meter-long container ship Ever Given became lodged in the canal. A statement by the Suez Canal Authority initially blamed the incident on high winds and a sand storm that reduced visibility, but later said that strong winds were “not the only cause,” and that an investigation was ongoing.

There is no clear indication at this point that climate change played a role in the sandstorm that led to the ship’s blocking the canal, but the incident raises intriguing questions that likely will prompt research into any correlation.

The multi-day shutdown of one of the world’s busiest shipping chokepoints underscores the vulnerability of the global food system and economy to disruptions. That vulnerability is playing on the stage of increasingly extreme weather, rising seas, and an increasingly just-in-time world of shipping.

For background reading on how a small number of “choke points” could affect global food supply this piece from Chatham House is quite helpful if a bit disturbing:

Global food security is underpinned by trade in a few crops and fertilizers. Just three crops – maize, wheat and rice – account for around 60 per cent of global food energy intake.1 A fourth crop, soybean, is the world’s largest source of animal protein feed, accounting for 65 per cent of global protein feed supply.2 Each year, the world’s transport system moves enough maize, wheat, rice and soybean to feed approximately 2.8 billion people.3 Meanwhile, the 180 million tonnes of fertilizers applied to farmland annually play a vital role in helping us grow enough wheat, rice and maize to sustain our expanding populations.4

International trade in these commodities is growing, increasing pressure on a small number of ‘chokepoints’ – critical junctures on transport routes through which exceptional volumes of trade pass. Three principal kinds of chokepoint are critical to global food security: maritime corridors such as straits and canals; coastal infrastructure in major crop-exporting regions; and inland transport infrastructure in major crop-exporting regions.

A serious interruption at one or more of these chokepoints could conceivably lead to supply shortfalls and price spikes, with systemic consequences that could reach beyond food markets. More commonplace disruptions may not in themselves trigger crises, but can add to delays, spoilage and transport costs, constraining market responsiveness and contributing to higher prices and increased volatility.

From one of our recent newsletters (we get a lot of them):

Food security declined for the second year in a row according to the Economist Intelligence Unit, after having improved every year since 2012 to 2019. While the top seven slots go to European countries, overall North America is the top performing region.

Covid stresses are providing an indicator of the food security weak spots likely to be exposed by further climate change. The most vulnerable populations in each country are severely exposed to both risks. Food security problems stretch across low, middle and high income countries, with China’s growing reliance on food imports set to be the next major source of food security debate.

Learn more about global food security here.

Our desire as a family is to glorify God by caring for his creation in a way that allows us to eat healthily, make a living and bless other people. 

…We set ourselves a simple goal: to grow all our own food and eat healthily. 

As with many others in many different parts of the world, their effort seeks to integrate all of the different parts of God’s creation:

We began with activities such as land preparation, construction of the chicken house, planting trees and digging fishponds. We read many articles and books and visited other people’s farms to learn from them. We looked for market opportunities and started to harvest eggs, vegetables, fish, chicken and rice.

‘Our farm of three hectares is now carefully planned for integrated farming. One third is for rice and the rest is for fish ponds, chickens, ducks, fruit trees, bamboo for construction, corn, beans, herbs, medicinal plants and vegetables. We raise bees in the fruit orchard for organic honey, pest control and pollination. 

‘We use farming practices that work with nature, not against it. We use compost and animal manure to fertilise the land. Pests and diseases are kept under control by insects and birds that are attracted to our farm by the trees, ponds and permanent vegetation.  

In the intervening years, they have influenced their neighbors and the larger Christian community around them. Read more here.

This has been an exciting and humbling journey this year at Against the Grain. Once again; as farmers we have experienced the climate challenges as our unusually wet, cold long spring left spring planting three weeks delayed. We had over 29 varieties of heritage wheat, barley in grow outs and 22 heritage dried beans. We harvested a variety of black barley that has taken 4 years of grow out to re-establish seed stock and was such a joy to see it come off the field. Many visitors including chefs, bakers, consumers and ecologically concerned came to the farm and I have been able to share the wonder of God’s goodness by providing seed to all. I believe this is my mission field and sharing with others the importance of bio-diversity and seed sovereignty is part of my passion as I acknowledge they are His seeds, not to be owned or controlled.

Learn more about Shelley and Tony at
savourottawa.ca/against-the-grain/

And here’s a great video profile of Shelley from the Europe Conference:
https://vimeo.com/236053515