Sallie

Satterthwaite

Lifestyle

Columnist

Tipping over sacred cows...

It seemed inconsequential at the time, a gesture of sorts, "making a statement." The check that normally would have bought a memorial poinsettia for our church's Christmas services I diverted instead to our denomination's World Hunger Appeal.

In fact, I'd forgotten about it until several weeks later, when I received an acknowledgment. With it was enclosed a brochure that described how planting trees and digging wells had helped stop the encroachment of the Sahara Desert in Niger.

It also said the hunger program helps feed the one in four American children who go hungry by supplementing community food programs and by providing their parents with job training and employment opportunities.

I was at once touched by what our church is doing for a hungry world and ashamed that my gift $8.50, the price then of a pot of poinsettias was so trivial in the face of such need.

Nearly 100 poinsettias were expected. Several women of the church would unload, label, arrange and then dispose of them. A very few would go to people whose lives would be brightened by them, but most would only add to the already richly decorated homes of our comfortable members.

It struck me that this expenditure of money and effort for the Christmas poinsettia and Easter lily memorials had become well, excessive. And for what? To beautify the sanctuary for an hour or two, then a week, perhaps, at home before being discarded?

My family is only one of about 600 belonging to a church which is only one of more than 11,000 congregations nationwide. We may be a bit above the median for size and income, and perhaps we spend more for flowers than other congregations. But simple math suggests that even just half of what we spend annually, multiplied by 11,000, would underwrite three-quarters of the hunger program's budget (using the 1990 figure of $11 million).

Meanwhile, in Niger, in the Middle East, in Sudan, in Somalia...

Before you color me Grinch, let me say I love fresh flowers dearly and believe that "the feast of victory for our God" ought to be celebrated lavishly. If someone decided, "No poinsettias this Christmas we're putting all the money toward the World Hunger Appeal," I'd be the first to run out and buy a flower to set the sanctuary aglow.

And as one whose child has been among those memorialized by the semiannual blooms in the chancel, I appreciate the listings each holiday season that say, "We remember and love you still."

But l00 poinsettias are at least 80 too many. A hundred pots of poinsettias, so vibrant they dazzle, is overkill. Can we read that oft-repeated statistic, 40,000 children dying of hunger-related causes every day, and then spend millions for one day's worth of flowers?

That number 40,000 is numbing. Each of them is someone's child. Most are loved by grieving parents. All are loved by God. Who will honor their memories by vowing to commit at least our excesses toward alleviating hunger?

Since that Christmas several years ago that inspired me to channel our memorial gifts to more lasting causes, our church has offered several alternatives: the World Hunger Appeal, the church building fund, scholarships for youth activities, disaster relief programs among them.

Many of us give to Lutheran World Relief, acknowledged even by secular critics as one of the most efficient and well-administered channels for charitable giving a list usually topped by Catholic Charities, by the way. Which is the more lasting a memorial, support for the church's work in the world or a flower that will be discarded by the time we hail the New Year?

Local congregational needs are just as urgent. I know of churches that have cut children's programs or delayed needed building expansions because of budget shortfalls. What a splendid gift, to provide for children's religious training in honor of a loved one's memory. The provision of Bibles would remain a memorial long beyond a single holiday one might say, beyond all our holidays.

Why not consider year-round alternative giving? Less affluent churches often use houseplants or flowers from members' gardens each Sunday, rather than store-bought arrangements. (And my mind reels when I remember all the certified Master Gardeners in our congregation!)

Our weekly flower arrangements cost $15 apiece, and there are two of them. Imagine the good that could be accomplished if, throughout the year, those funds were instead directed to hunger relief or musical instruments or scholarships or mission work.

It need not be a matter of either/or. Church bulletins could say: "Flowers on the altar this morning come from the garden of John and Mary Smith, who have given the third grade Sunday School class Bibles in memory of Mary's father."

God's word will be nurturing souls long after the Smiths' roses have withered away.

[Readers: I'd like to hear from you on this subject. Has your congregation dealt with this issue? E-mail me at sallies@juno.com.]

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