Letters - 04 August 2023
From ‘Joy in Enough’ to Climate breakdown
‘Joy in Enough’
I was interested in the article ‘Food for thought’ by Martyn Kelly in the Friend (30 June).
Food is something with deep cultural connections, and food goes to the heart of community. A proliferation of articles about food choice in relation to the environmental impact of our choices demonstrate a growing awareness of the problems associated with meat and dairy products, packaging, food miles and fair trade, but the glaringly-obvious omission is the element of food waste. Minimising food waste is a way of showing respect and gratitude for our food, and it is the first and most important principle when it comes to reducing the environmental impact of our food. Food choices are a luxury of our modern western society. It is often the case that more choice leads to more waste.
Martyn relates food choice to fasting (from environmentally damaging choices) and quotes George Fox ‘…then you will come to walk cheerfully over the Earth answering that of God in everyone’. This reminded me of the challenge to a ‘dour Puritan stereotype’ in the title of Green Christian initiative ‘Joy in Enough’ https://joyinenough.org.
Joy in Enough challenges the modern Western way of thinking, where having more choice is prioritised and the problem of waste gets overlooked. It is interesting to note this emphasis in media articles about food. It would be good to have more articles about joyfully reducing our impact on the Earth’s resources.
Bernie Jordan
The status of trans people
I am a trans women, which at seventy, and in the current transphobic climate, is a gift I am not entirely grateful for. Ever since childhood I have been regarded as ‘strange’ because of my nature – kind, caring, happier in the company of women, sexually attracted to both sexes – and this has placed me at risk of violence from men. Since coming out last year I experimented with nail varnish, face foundation and aspects of women’s jewellery, but now I am more cautious.
One of the problems is being labelled a transgender ‘woman’, which is not necessarily the case. I am a woman living in a male body but I am under no illusions that I am a woman, as is generally recognised, and I don’t want to be. Yet, at present there is no alternative to this title and, in my mind, this lies at the heart of the debate about the existence of trans people. There needs to be another title which moves away from the man/woman dynamic and which recognises this third gender as being a natural part of human evolution.
Apart from increasing the need for an expansion in toilet/changing room facilities, this debate might further its scope by examining the role of charismatic ‘asexual’ prophets in our history – for example Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha and Hitler, and asking which gender they emerged from. I suggest they were transwomen.
Neil Crabtree
