Tuesday, April 21, 2009

What Price Tomatoes?

From the March 2009 issue of Gourmet... an article on tomatoes and virtual slavery entitled "The Price of Tomatoes" and an online follow-up "Harvest of Hope."

I only read it because I was reading the letters about the original article in this most recent issue, May 2009. While most letters were thankful for the article on the subhuman conditions in which tomato pickers were kept, one reader commented "I can't begin to tell you how sick and tired I am of political propaganda that's slipped into every damned magazine." Caring about the condition of the workers who bring us our daily bread is vitally connected to our praying the "Our Father."

This past Sunday, I reminded my confirmation class that when we pray for our daily bread, since much of our food comes in through supermarkets, we pray for the truck drivers who transport the food, the upkeep and monitoring of the highway system, and now for the workers who harvest the food. Articles like this one are indeed political propaganda... the politics of the Kingdom and how this world falls incredibly short.

3 comments:

Pastor Joelle said...

Some of those comments left and how little they regard the workers is very disheartening.

Phillip said...

There is a great segment on this topic (not on the tomato workers, but daily bread) in the recent book "My Year of Living Biblically." I can't remember the name of the author. Hilarious, but good.

John, an unlikely pastor said...

Thank you for a vivid interpretation of a prayer I say everyday. Keep it up.