Grace at the Table [antikvár]

Chapter iA Place at the TableA large family is seated at a dinner table. They bow their heads and together acknowledge that the food set before them and the life it sustains are gifts from God. They say grace.After the prayer, a few children quickly scoop up most of the food. Others at the table go hungry Gaunt looks on several faces indicate that this happens regularly Grace at the table has been violated by an injustice that contradicts the goodness of the Giver, for truly to thank God is also to share the gift of food with everyone at the table.Unfortunately, this imaginary scene is a snapshot of the human family today, because more than 800 million people in the developing countries still suffer chronic undernutrition. About 31 thousand children under age five die each day in developing countries, half from hunger-related causes.In the United States 34 miUion people live in families that are food insecure, and the number of people who sometimes go hungry in the United States has probably increased over the last 25 years.'Yet widespread hunger is no longer necessary. Wars and tyrants will cause some people to go hungry, no matter what we do. But the resources, technology and knowledge needed to end the sort of routine, pervasive hunger the world now tolerates are readily available. Ending hunger, in this sense, is quite feasible worldwide. It's even more clear that most of the hunger in the United States could be eliminated, because other countries at the same level of average per capita income have done so.A generation ago, scientists and government leaders realized that for the first time the world had the means to overcome hunger. At the World Food Conference in 1974 U.S. Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, citing pohtical will as the critical factor in overcoming hunger, proposed and the conference resolved "that within a decade no child will go to bed hungry"^ President