Many will be familiar with this passage from Ecclesiastes 3:1.3 ‘There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens’. The well known, often-quoted passage seems quite appropriate at the moment. Church Related Community Worker (CRCW) Jo Patterson reflects on the last 18 months and shares her insights on the importance of food, and how it has brought communities together in Peckham.
We are in a time of dramatic change where we are supposed to let all the restrictions of the past 18 months go and have our “Freedom Day”. While this is easily said, this change of liberty doesn’t mean freedom for everyone and many are nervous and anxious.
We do need to manage the change, still grow and evolve, knowing that God is in it with us, beside us and knowing the whole range of thoughts, fears and feelings that come with our start-stop situation.
Does this mean we have had our time for Coronavirus? Sadly not.
But the passage in Ecclesiastes does run the full gamut of situations, activities and emotions. In our ever-changing lives there is sadness but also hope, distress and joy, conflict and also peace.
We do need to manage the change, still grow and evolve, knowing that God is in it with us, beside us and knowing the whole range of thoughts, fears and feelings that come with our start-stop situation.
So, how can we grow into a safe place where we feel there is progress rather than defeat and happiness rather than anxiety. No-one can promise total safety or continuous joy, so what can we do?
Experiences of sharing food together
Food has been a central part of a lot of community work in the last 10 years and especially in our pandemic months. There have been experiences of sharing food, more cooking and baking, delivery programmes for those isolating or vulnerable. But also times when there is not enough food.
Around that, were sessions about new activities and opportunities to attend mental health work like our mindfulness classes. Or come for communion and then stay for scrambled eggs. So, a café but not just about the food, but about forming community.
Foodbanks are busier than ever before, new food provision centres have started up all over the country and the work and generosity of many faith groups, churches, mosques, synagogues, temples and chapels as well as community centres, schools and businesses providing school lunches, food parcels, meals for essential workers, NHS staff and the homeless, has demonstrated that we are close as communities and can see beyond what we hold as our own and will share and freely give.
What we have acheived in Peckham
Last spring at Copleston Church and Centre in Peckham, London, our older people’s programme team began working on a new way to provide food. Pre-pandemic we had a volunteer led community café open to all with affordable meals and a chance to pop in for a chat.
Around that, were sessions about new activities and opportunities to attend mental health work like our mindfulness classes. Or come for communion and then stay for scrambled eggs. So, a café but not just about the food, but about forming community.
How did we do this when buildings are closed and everyone is staying indoors?
Our creative team came up with the idea of using a local chef with less to do than usual to cook healthy meals, keeping our older people physically well, delivering meals safely, and sometimes having a doorstep chat. It was extremely popular and we started with 20 homes, rapidly increasing to 40 and beyond our usual geographical boundaries.
everything had its season, and this week we have opened up for a socially distanced chance to stop and eat with others. Bring a drink, pick up your food, take a seat and have a chat with some one whilst you eat.
So, what is this about growth or change or seasons? After a few months it became clear from our older people that they wanted an
excuse to pop out and bump into their friends… so we gave them that excuse!
On Wednesday they could come and pick up their food, now provided by four local businesses and parceled up to keep warm, with 3 or 4 especially vulnerable people still getting a delivery.
So again, food is not the whole point, but a change was in the air. That collection system has been going for a number of months, with the chatter outside continuing despite the colder winter weather.
But again, everything had its season, and this week we have opened up for a socially distanced chance to stop and eat with others. Bring a drink, pick up your food, take a seat and have a chat with some one whilst you eat.
Progress or change or growth, with food as a purpose but community at the core of what is really going on. And another change – to add to our growing number of businesses who are involved, we now have our community café volunteers back in to cook every month.
They are back with joy, happy to be out and about and get involved again. Food as a purpose, but with another thing going on underneath. From Ecclesiastes 3:13 ‘That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil – this is the gift of God.’
Creativity and dedication of staff and volunteers
This developing programme is not because we ‘had to’ make change. It came from the creativity of our wonderful staff and volunteers, whose dedication and ingenuity reacted to the conversations they had on the doorstep, over the phone, then in a queue and then in a church hall.
The community made this happen and the team facilitated it. As we read in Ecclesiastes 3:22, ‘So I saw that there is nothing better for a person than to enjoy their work, because that is their lot. For who can bring them to see what will happen after them?’
They could not see what was going to happen, but they made things happen and adapted to what they saw around them. So a huge thanks go to Julia, Ann, Claire, Brian, Megan, Daniel, Kate, Tracy and many other volunteers who made this work, Who knows what will happen next?
The community made this happen, the team facilitated it.
The seasons of the ‘Real Meals’ programme developed in a natural and holistic way, but was all about the people, not just the food. We live in a country where seasons are dramatic and sometimes very wooly. We shouldn’t be surprised when there is change, stop and start, evolution.
The reality of our situation
Looking back at that list of essential food provision makes us proud in one way, but should also make us ashamed in another. Those who do this work do it freely, but don’t want to. And there is the rub… surely we can look at the last 18 months and see that food poverty and inequality should have a season, and that this season should change and evolve too.
The huge numbers of people relying on food from a charitable source is unacceptable; we have reached a time when we need to look more closely as to why this is, not celebrate the numbers who come through the door. This is certainly a time for a change.
Find out more about Church Related Community Work
If you would like to find out more about Church Related Community Work and how you can become an agent of social change, contact the CRCW office by email for more information.