World Interfaith Week

For Reflection: Before moving on to Mission #5, take a moment to reflect on yesterday's mission. Mission #4 went from the universal of the Golden Rule to the deeply personal. How did it feel to identify the acts of kindness you find extra meaningful when you are the recipient? Was it difficult? Why do you think this is? Was it challenging to treat others in this special way? Was it rewarding? If you haven't done so, post your reflections and experiences on the Compassion Report Map to amplify your compassionate action!

“Three times a day we get to express our values through food.”  - Michael Pollan, Author, Journalist, & Food Activist Our fifth mission, Agents, is to become radically attuned to the life-giving experience of eating, by one’s self or with others. Watch this clip of our friends Michael Pollan and Oprah Winfrey explain thepremise of our fifth mission! Eating is a direct, daily reminder and connection to all of the unseen and interrelated forces that we depend upon to live. This is an incredibly profound experience that human beings share universally around the world. Yet, often it is difficult in fast-paced modern societies to slow down enough to be mindful of how meaningful and important of an experience eating actually is! To counteract this problem, we’ve developed a Compassion Games “Power-Up” to help us more fully connect with our food, one another, and our Mother Earth. This Power-Up is called “Yum the Meal!” There are only four guiding actions of play… share this experience alone or with friends. Yum the Meal! Guiding Action #1: Ground yourself fully in the moment by taking 3 slow, deep breaths. Let go of whatever has been on your mind, and tune into the sensations of your living body, of your windy breath and the feeling of existing as a physical being in this very moment. Guiding Action #2: Think of as many ways to thank the food you are eating as possible. Pour gratitude into everything about your food. For instance, you can give thanks to each animal, and each plant that you are about to eat. You can give thanks to the trace minerals in the food that our bodies need to survive every day, and even the particles of energy within the food that will soon become our very bodies. You can give thanks to the farmers who grew the food, to the soil which provided the nutrients within it, and to the Earth for providing the precious conditions for life to exist! Guiding Action #3: Enjoy the first three bites of your meal as much as you possibly can. Savor every nuance of flavor, every micro-landscape of texture, and how everything about your food coalesces into the river of a life-giving experience. Guiding Action #4: With every bite, give thanks to your beautiful body for sustaining your life. Day after day, year after year, our bodies work so that we can live, so that we can live our one wild, wonderful, and mysterious life. As you fulfill your mission, share your experiences on the Compassion Report Map to amplify its power! Check out all of the inspiring reports posted on the map so far! Going Deeper: Going deeper in our experience with food is recognizing that everyone has a relationship with food, and recognizing that for some, food poverty is a reality. Many of us are privileged to have healthy and abundant food in our lives, but for many this is not the case. One of the featured Ways to Play during Harmony Week is the Souper Bowl Food Drive as a way to support our brothers and sisters who are hungry and in need of food. A little compassion and thoughtfulness can go a long way if we all come together to donate food to our local food pantries to give them some support. Participate in the Souper Bowl by organizing your community to share the abundance of food so there is less hunger and suffering in the world. Additional Resources: Learn more about Michael Pollan and his work on food advocacy here! Review Past Missions! Missed any of the previous missions or want to review them? View them here!