Email: Sarah Parsons

Dear Friends,

My apologies for writing so late this month. It has been a tumultuous one. Life in Tucson has been relatively chaotic. The farmers’ markets have started up again in full force. My arm muscles are continually getting bigger, and I worry that I may look like a body-builder of sorts by the end of my year here in September.

The food bank I work with is currently experiencing difficulties similar to those other food banks across the nation are going through. Due to the drag in the economy, the demand for food boxes and food assistance for lower income folk has increased. The unfortunate reality, however:  the supply of food banks (attained via donations from stores, etc) has remained the same. Food banks (including the Tucson food bank) have been forced to cut back in the number of food boxes given out every month. In places where two food boxes were given out every month, for example, only one box can be provided now.

The reality is a harsh one, and one that I have been exposed to more than I would like to admit working here in Tucson. In an effort to reach out to those folk, the Tucson food bank has promoted our farmers’ markets to certain families, giving them coupons to shop at our markets and get fresh fruit and vegetables into their families’ diets. The state-issued farmers’ market coupons that come through WIC (Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, better known as WIC) will not come until March (Farmers' Market Nutrition Program Coupons do not last throughout the year, because they are dependent on federal government funding). Providing some of our direct clients with coupons in the Tucson area, however, allows us to provide some aid to lower-income families now, in a time of great need when they may not have any other means to supplement their food sources. (Our coupons can only can be used at farmers’ markets hosted by our food bank, which sells produce from the food bank’s farm. We have three markets every week.)

The month of January has also sparked in me many personal faith questions. Currently my housemates and I are conducting a book study on Jesus for President by Shane Claiborne. I highly recommend it. If you have already read the book, I would love to hear your thoughts on it. The book challenges a reader's thoughts about living in this world and being Christian. The two realities are much more contradictory than I originally thought. I knew they were contradictory to a degree, but when someone takes you through a play-by-play of Jesus’ life, then you begin to realize the truth about the contradictions that exist in being a Christian in today’s world.

Jesus was a radical, and if we want to really follow him we have to be a little radical too. How seriously are we to take Jesus when he says crazy things like, “Give all of your possessions to the poor and follow me?” And to what degree do we follow the social norms of this world? Jesus definitely did not, and He was not exactly politically correct either. 

I have also come to the conclusion that Jesus was not “Southern.”  We Southerners like our social norms, and we are far too polite. However, He was quite a hospitable fella. Maybe we can most accurately say He was mix between a Southerner and a West Coaster. Whatever the case, I have been faithfully challenged. As I prepare to make my next step in life (whether it be grad school or working in Washington, D.C.), I am presented with a predicament that the greater reality of being a Christian presents all of us. We live in an institutionalized world. And although many institutions do a great deal of good in this world, they also have the potential to distract us from the things Jesus taught us about. Give to the poor… and come follow me (Matthew 19:21). Love your neighbor as yourself.  How do we balance our lives and not lose sight of these things Jesus requested of us? It is an uncomfortable reality, one that has created in me a great disquietude. It is a reality, however, that I think Jesus wanted us to realize. This world is not supposed to be comfortable, and we are to be motivated by that discomfort as Christians to bring more of His love and grace in this world. Please forgive my going off on this tangent. I imagine these questions of the faith are not new. They are new neither to you nor to me, but it’s not the novelty of these questions that concerns me; rather it is the way they repeat themselves in my mind. It’s God’s way of calling me to do more, and His way of reminding me of what life in this world is supposed to look like through Christian eyes. 

Thank you all so kindly for reading. And thank you for being with me on my faith journey here in Tucson. I think of you all very often, and I miss you already. Please know you always have someone out here in the southwestern desert rooting and praying for you.

Con mis oraciones y mi amor... como siempre (with my prayers and love...  as always),

Sarah Parsons