The rise of the vegan movement challenges us to reflect ethically on food, and to attend more carefully to how it arrives at our table. Within the broader culture, cafes, pubs and restaurants populate Australia, with many food choices available. These are gathering points for young and old, as baristas, chefs, bar attendants and waitstaff offer hospitality to people throughout the day. We expect a feast of food, coffee and alcohol at celebrations but also at more routine events. Our current approach to food and drink is off-balance and unsustainable.
On another level a cultural shift has happened where for many people meals are no longer communal events. Apartment living has spread across our cities, and single-person dwellings are more common. No matter the living situation, comfort eating is sometimes used to assuage the pain when people are lonely, isolated or depressed. We need to encourage people to gather for communal moments when we stop and spend time together. It's sometimes not easy to find our tribe and engage with others, but this is important today.
There is a broader social and ecological milieu for our eating and drinking. When we go to a local cafe or restaurant, enjoying a meal or coffee in the presence of friends and strangers alike, there are those who barely subsist outside the reach of our tables. Furthermore, today our common home cries out for us to care for its fragile ecosystems. It is now clear that our entrenched patterns of consumption need to change in step with our new ecological consciousness. The earth's own liberation needs some reconciliation with our insatiable desire and appetite for more.
Within this context, Saint Ignatius Loyola's guidelines for mindful eating are worth pondering. The founder of the Jesuits was a soldier turned pilgrim who paved a path for integrating spirituality with daily life. Foundational to his approach is holding tensions in balance: being contemplative in the midst of action; working for the common good of the world while being at home in the church; remembering today with gratitude and humility before discerning how to better live tomorrow.
While Ignatius' guidelines for eating and drinking envisage a retreat time of Spiritual Exercises, reflecting on his approach may offer inspiration for how we live each day. Ignatius prompts us to practise reverence in the moment and gratitude for the gifts we are receiving. For an age of food and drink on demand, heeding his