Share some food and find the antidote to despair

Who we eat with says who we are.

Isaac Frisby

Isaac is a PhD candidate in Theology at Durham University and preparing for priesthood in the Church of England.

Three people stand beside a table and smile.

Lewisham Mayor Brenda Dacres with foodbank volunteers.

Lewisham Foodbank.

In my local supermarket a new foodbank collection trolley has appeared with this sign,

“Gift a toy this Christmas…give a gift this Christmas to those who need it most.”

Setting aside the usual ethical dilemma presented by the existence of foodbanks (why do they exist in such a wealthy country?), the sign prompted a thought on the nature of joy. What is more joyful than the surprise of an unexpected gift? After all, Christmas is around the corner, “Joy to the world!”.

That thought came to mind when I was recently asked; how do we cultivate and foster joy? If I’m honest I was a little stumped by the question. What even is joy anyway?

We can too easily and readily conflate it with lesser feelings like happiness or pleasure, which by their nature seem to be fleeting, like a chocolate bar: here one moment, gone the next. Thinking about it, joy seems to be thrown into relief when it is set against one of its opposites: despair. We all know what despair looks like; loneliness, isolation, a hopelessness which can yawn like a great dark chasm, without edges to get purchase on, or without a hand to hold.

Christmas can be an especially potent time for despair. The days are short and often dimmed by heavy cloud and rain. Children’s expectation that Santa will bring all of the latest goodies drives parents into debt to make their hopes come true. Those in dire straits will struggle to scrape together the food that goes into the usual Christmas feast. This combination of dark days and high expectations can and does drive many further into despair. It is this sense of aloneness, of the weight of the world heaped on your shoulders alone, which fuels despair.

This despair is not only reserved for Christmas. We see the climbing rates of anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues in the younger generations. Having been born into the age of the internet and growing up with social media, the temptation to compare with the heavily edited and curated lives of others, encouraged by the platform algorithms themselves, only serves to make young people feel increasingly alone.

This feeling is not helped by the propaganda of the age; that we are all rational, autonomous individuals, whose fulfilment looks like self-reliance, status, and wealth, without the need for anyone else. All this breeds the solipsism and nihilism that so often morphs into despair.

Foodbanks are the proof that this most basic constituent of joy is a struggle for many, from the sheer lack of food to share

What does this despair tell us about joy? If despair is in isolation, bearing our burdens alone, then joy is in being with other people. To return to that chocolate bar, if happiness (and perhaps the despair which comes from having no more chocolate bar) is scoffing it by ourselves, then joy is breaking off a part and sharing it with another. Human beings are naturally social creatures. It is in our very nature to live with one another. If we remain alone, closed off to others, then we nurture the despair that this breeds.

An incredibly simple way we remain connected to each other is by sharing food. If despair is the isolation from others then sharing food is the negation of this isolation. Sharing food is universally important, whether it’s the realpolitik of American high school films (the jock table vs the dork table and who’s allowed to sit with who, encapsulated perfectly by Mean Girls), or the mystical heights of the Christian eucharist. Who we eat with says who we are, with all the potential for exclusion the examples above show. But eating with others says what we are. Sharing food, especially in celebration at a time like Christmas, reminds us that our humanity is only ever shared. This reminder that we are not alone is not a fleeting happiness; it is a confirmation in our very flesh and bones that we are made of the same stuff, that we are never alone.

Many of us will have this joy as part of our everyday lives; foodbanks are the proof that this most basic constituent of joy is a struggle for many, from the sheer lack of food to share. The sign that appeared in my local supermarket is more proof that we already know how simple joy can be. Many foodbanks organise specifically festive food for this season, because we know that not only sharing food, but celebrating in that sharing is crucial to what it means to be human. Even in the morally mixed ecosystem of the foodbank, the need for joy shines through; sharing food in celebration is one of those antidotes for despair. In sharing our food we find our humanity, and what is more joyful than that?

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Resurrection

24 January 2025

2 min read

How do you drink religiously?

A Dry January ad catches the eye.

Jonny Torrance

Jonathan is a priest and theologian who researches theology and comedy.

A subway billboard ad show a nun cradling a beer.

Lucky Saint.

On a recent trip across London, I was slightly surprised to be exhorted multiple times to “Drink Religiously.” For those of you, like me, not from the capital, this is an ad campaign for Lucky Saint non-alcoholic beer. It features an image of a nun in a classically pious pose, cradling in her hands a bottle of the apparently blessed brew.

Further research (by which I mean a quick Google search), revealed the beer is a new arrival on the scene, and is the “official” beer of dry January. And the name? Well the website claims it is “a wry nod to the virtuousness of drinking alcohol-free.”

Christian nerd that I am, this ad got me thinking. What should we make of the suggestion to “drink religiously”?

Well firstly using the imagery of religion to advertise beer feels a little new. Doing things “religiously” has not tended to be seen as a positive, and so it hasn’t been a key part of the advertising strategy of brewers: an advert that tells you to drink sinfully sounds a lot more plausible. Maybe this is over-reading things, but the ad is emblematic of what we are increasingly observing – our culture feels more open to God, or at least to religion, than it was. Even if all we do with that openness is sell stuff.

That said, the ad also works because it assumes we all know what religion is, so much so that we know what “drinking religiously” would involve. Religion, in the language of the ad, is concerned with moral uprightness. Obviously religious people, if they are going to drink, are going to drink alcohol free beer, because we all know that alcohol is morally bad, or so the implied argument goes. They even use that rather unfashionable word virtue. There’s more than a hint on the website that drinking this beer makes you just a little bit better than everyone else.

But what might Christian religious drinking be? Well, I can only speak for myself, but the ad made me think about Communion – that strange moment in church services where Christians drink wine to remember, and somehow partake in, Jesus’ blood.

Now, Communion is an incredibly rich topic and has layer upon layer of meaning. But one thing we remember as we eat bread and sip wine, is that we are precisely not better than other people. That to be “religious”, or better still to be Christian, is not to be more virtuous than others, if anything it is to be more aware of our need.

When we come to take Communion, we come with empty hands, and are fed. We come acknowledging not our luck but our weakness, and are given drink. We come with our need and are met by the God who gives us more than we can imagine, because he gives himself.

What might it mean to “drink religiously”?

Call me a cynic, but I think it might be something other than just enjoying the taste of beer without risking a hangover.

Perhaps it might mean to meet with Jesus Christ in a sip of wine on a Sunday morning.

But then I haven’t actually tried Lucky Saint, so who knows, maybe drinking it really is a religious experience.

Cheers.