Saturday, March 3, 2012

Senorita Chiquita, Mr. Hyde

BREAKFAST: Banana; toast with peanut butter; half a chocolate old-fashioned doughnut
LUNCH: falafel sandwich
DINNER: tofu curry soup, with tarro root and other veggies. Three Floyd's Zombie Duster beer. "the most popular beer in Chicago right now, and for good reason." Got Yakima Valley fruit, so a shout-out to the Inland Northwest!

ORIGIN OF ONE ITEM: Chiquita Banana. 30cents/lb because it was on its way out.
 Conventional banana plantations, largely in Central and South America, are not great. They suck. A quick search found other blogs and websites discussing and citing their child labor violations, pesticide use, paying off politicians and suing newspapers. Mine was likely from Ecuador.

THEOLOGICAL REFLECTION:
Today’s prayer excerpt is attributed to Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu adapted from an original prayer by Sir Francis Drake.


Disturb us, O Lord
when with the abundance of things we possess,
we have lost our thirst for the water of life
when, having fallen in love with time,
we have ceased to dream of eternity 


Now this Chiquita stuff is disturbing. Trouble is, I'm often more disturbed by the brown mushiness of my bananas (gross gross gross) or how, on occasion, by how quickly they are are tossed by grocery stores, myself and others(because you can have too much banana bread. Trust me). That's because many people like me find them gross overripe but demand constant access to bananas. This super-abundance of starchy potassium-in-a-peel does, like the prayer excerpt indicates, make me lose my thirst for life. Specifically here, I lose the thirst to change others' lives that make my banana possible. The children and workers on banana plantations face a lot of hardship as discussed above.

So let's imagine something else on our banana stickers, in place of the smiling face and swinging hips of Senorita Chiquita. Can you imagine if instead we had a picture of a frowning child on our banana? Or even a man in a suit, gripping a wad of cash? Now that would be disturbing. Further, in my own obsession to eat bananas at the perfect hour of ripeness (I'm certain it's only for that long) then I am losing sight of the fact that the banana will decompose-----if I let it. I can take the long view. I can return my banana to the Earth (first via the compost bin in freezer). How easily I buy into the "time is money" mentality, and that if I don't time everything in life just right, I lose. My banana goes rotten.  [Insert your own life metaphor for rotting bananas here]. So next time you eat a banana, see if you've got a sticker, imagine another face, be a little disturbed. Hopefully then we will get hit with the pangs of hunger for the flourishing of all lives, all life, for all time.

Erika

2 comments:

  1. good thoughts. p.s. I can't read your theological reflection--it's too tiny--even with my glasses on...just so you know you might consider editing the font. :)

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  2. it should be a little easier to read now! thanks for the catch!

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