The Empty Refrigerator

Our family spent a couple of days on Cape Cod last week for Spring Break. We had a great time and were thankful for the gift of a short break that was fun and relaxing. We did come home to find that we (well I actually think it was me) had left the refrigerator door open. Yeh. Bye bye food. And not just a little bit of it. I am the type that hates shopping and if I can plan well enough to go only twice a month I find myself satisfied.  But that means the refrigerator is full, most of the time. As I tossed two bags full of food away I felt pretty sick to my stomach. Realizing that we were about to begin our “when hunger comes home” week at church made me all the more mindful of the waste. The temptation to hit the store and restock was interrupted when I sensed that maybe it would be ok to just live with an empty refrigerator for a week. To experience what that might feel like to many in our world who do not have a refrigerator let alone any food to eat at all. What's strange though is that as a family we are appreciating our empty refrigerator. It's actually made our subsistence diet that much easier. I can honestly say to my kids (and myself for that matter) “Sorry we don't have that.” What's more our lack of choice and options has actually been a surprising blessing. The daily mealtime squabbles and stress over what to prepare that might satisfy each ones individual food preferences just does not exist. It's real simple. No dessert or treats this week. Oatmeal for breakfast, beans and rice for dinner and a combination of that in some way for lunch. I know that long term the monotony would get to us all and right now it's still new and even strangely fun to do what we are doing. But I keep wondering about the simplicity of it all and wondering whether we are so “privileged” after all with all our abundance and with all our variety and choices and fancy meals. So here's thanks to an empty fridge and all the lessons we are learning.

Submitted by: Nici Smith