Hunger Is Not a Disease

Politicians – the Season Begins Again!

February 26, 2024 at 1:02 am

The political season begins again.  In Woodstock, the politicians come calling.  They knock on the door – their smiles open, their outfits perfect.

And,  they don’t want to hear any questions – not from me, anyway.

I answer the door and listen to their message.  I’m waiting to pounce, really.  Because, I know they don’t know anything about hunger in our area.

And, I do know about hunger in our area.

The minute I open my mouth, they start to run for it.

Well, not so fast politician.  Not so fast.  You can’t leave my front door without taking a copy of one of my books with you.

I really know more about the economics of this area than they know. I know about children who go to school hungry.  I know about families who routinely choose between food and transportation, food and housing, food and healthcare.

The politicians know their dance is up for today.  Because I know about homelessness.  I know the difference between shelter and housing.

Woodstock is a community where people working here come from somewhere else.

Each year, I figure that some kind of message will go out and no  politicians will knock on my door.  I’m wrong every year.

So, I sit – waiting to pounce.

Lord, I apologize.  I simply can’t help myself.  Someday, I’m going to apologize and know its the last time because I won’t act this way next time.  I’d be lying to you now, Lord, if I even pretended that I won’t do it again.

I love pouncing on these people who knock on the door.  I love to tell everyone how hard it is for the elderly to get food when their shoulders and knees don’t work anymore.  I love to talk about friends I have who don’t drive anymore and who live in a food desert.

Lord, as seniors, we routinely pay more, get less, and do without.  The without part comes because we’re outliving our savings.

I feel like everyone needs to know these things.  How are the politicians going to know about them if I don’t tell them?  I’ve convinced myself that its part of my job as a food pantry volunteer.

Food pantries are mostly hidden services.  People shopping at one certainly don’t tell anyone where they get their groceries.  And, the volunteers don’t talk either.

In the beginning, I was bothered about this but I’ve come to realize that food pantries are places where miracles happen.  And, miracles are much easier if no one knows about them.

Lord, on behalf of everyone who shops or volunteers at a food pantry, I offer gratitude for the many miracles You perform on our pantry day.

And, Lord, thanks for sending these politicians over to my house every voting season.  I love to pounce and then send them away with my books.

Thank you again Lord.  I offer gratitude on behalf of everyone who shops or volunteers at a food pantry.

Amen

Thanks for reading this article!  If you enjoyed it, check out some of the older articles.  Hunger is not a Disease is an fascinating story about hunger in a small town food pantry.  This blog has been relating stories and events for ten years!

I’m amazed when I read this.  I never, in my wildest dreams, thought I would be writing about hunger and homelessness for over 10 years.  And yet, here I am, plugging away!

What a journey this blog has been – and continues to be.

What was I thinking?

Please share this article with your friends and family.  Forward it to your preferred social media network and post it on Facebook even.

Check out my books on www.thurmangreco.com.  The website is being repaired so contact me at thurmangro@gmail.com to purchase one or more of the books.

 

Let’s Live with Thurman Greco is a program aired weekly on Woodstock’s own educational TV channel 23.  This show is an informative, upbeat hour with no rehearsals.  Some segments support the blog information and highlight Reiki Therapy, Hand and Food Reflexology, and other wellness subjects.

Guests are various people whose lives have brought them to Woodstock for a day, a week, an hour, a decade, or more.  I can truthfully boast that guests report they enjoy the experience.

Let’s Live has been running for over 15 years with an occasional intermission now and then.

Enjoy interesting and fun programs while getting a peek into Woodstockers being themselves.  Search “Let’s Live with Thurman Greco” on YOUTUBE and check out the ever growing list of videos.

Please contact me at thurmangreco@gmail with comments or questions.

A Prayer to the Most Powerful Woman in the World

February 22, 2024 at 12:38 am

Somehow, when I’m in a food pantry, I feel the presence of Mother Mary.  She greets us and invites us to know her better.  She is also ready to sit with us on our spiritual and physical journeys.

People go to Mary with issues related to children and with healing of all kinds.  They go to Mary for forgiveness, compassion, and mercy.  That puts her square in the middle of the food pantry line.

Mary has no doctrine.  Nor does she have a dogma.  Mary’s story shows us she knows intimately about hunger, suffering, sorrow, and death.

Mary’s prayers count.

Mary waits for us to reach out to her.  Mary has been waiting for us long before we became aware of her.

Mary accepts us, whatever our beliefs.  She doesn’t care whether we follow an established religion or even no religion.  She accepts us as we come to her.  Mary belongs to all faiths, all religions, all paths, and all people.

She protects, heals, and guides us all.  She is there with us in the pantry line.  She offers comfort in troubled times.  Mary teaches that we all have value.

Sensing her presence, I feel  she is showing us how to turn our pain into life lessons to help us cope with and enjoy life.

If we listen, Mary protects us when danger lies ahead.

I write these things because I somehow know that they are real.  I know this to my bones.  I’m not sure how this knowing came about.  And, truthfully, I quit asking HOW a long time ago.

Working in a food pantry brought up questions that were dormant throughout my life.  I pondered, worried, and searched for answers for years.  I’ve finally decided that there are some things I don’t have the answers for yet.

And, so what.  Do I have to know the answers to everything?  After all, I’m only human.  And, an old human at that.

All I can do is say “thank you” to Mary for being here for us.

Thank you Mary for holding me up in the food pantry when the numbers were too high and getting higher every week.

Thank you for being there with us all in that line.

Amen.

Thanks for reading this article.  I am not here to challenge or change your beliefs about feeding the hungry or about any other thing, as far as that goes.  I am not here to change your story.  Instead, I am here as a conduit for your own healing.

Please share this article with friends and relatives.  Forward this post to your preferred social media network.

Check out my books on www.thurmangreco.com.  The website is being repaired.  To purchase a book or 2, please contact me at thurmangreco@gmail.com.

Let’s Live with Thurman Greco is a program aired weekly on Woodstock’s own educational TV channel 23.  This show is an informative, upbeat hour with no rehearsals.  Some segments support the blog information and highlight Reiki Therapy, Hand and Food Reflexology, and other wellness subjets.

Guests are various people whose lives have brought them to Woodstock for a day, a week, an hour, a decade or more.  I can truthfully boast that guests report they enjoy the experience.

Let’s Live has been running for over 15 years with an occasional intermission, now and then.

Enjoy interesting and fun programs while getting a peek into Woodstockers being themselves.  Search “Let’s Live with Thurman Greco” on YouTube and check out the ever growing list of videos.

Finally:  THIS BLOG IS CELEBRATING ITS 10TH YEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A Family Blessing

February 16, 2024 at 8:59 pm

Families in communities everywhere make their way to a food pantry weekly. ly.  And, grandmothers are an essential part of this mix, playing their part in different ways.

Grandmothers care for the grandchildren while their parents work 2 and 3 jobs each.

Because the crowded conditions in many pantries are stressful for some children, grandmothers care for the grandchildren while the mothers shop at a food pantry.

Shopping at a food pantry can take hours depending on the crowds and the lines.  People don’t just “drop in” at a food pantry with a shopping list.

One family with 5 children attends the pantry weekly.  Grandmother sits in the car and watches the children and Buffy the dog while mother shops.  Somehow,  grandmother manages to entertain the children as they all wait in the car.  The mother stands in the line, first in the the parking lot and later in the building hallway, while she waits her turn to shop in the pantry for 3-4 minutes.

Grandmothers take their grandchildren shopping at a pantry when the parents   work.  One grandmother I know takes her grandson with her weekly.  Little David is always delighted to choose an apple as a treat on each pantry visit.

Children in our country today shop in the pantry weekly with their mothers or grandmothers.  Shopping with the family to put food on the table is an outing  practiced weekly the world over.

Listening and chatting with these children over the years I’ve observed  something:  Many of these children have never been in a large grocery store or super market.  A food pantry has a product selection of probably 50 to 100 items. A grocery store has  a product selection of probably 10,000 to 50,000 items.

BLESS OUR FAMILIES, O LORD.

Whether they are families by blood or circumstances, make them holy.

Make Yourself easy to find Lord.  Let us find you in our marriages, our families, our households, our communities and our relationships.  Let us find you globally.

Many things in our daily lives seem to conspire to divide us.  Help us see beyond the divisions and see a family.  Help us embrace one another as a family.  Help us love each other as a family .

May families in food pantries everywhere know your presence as they go about their days.

Amen

Thank you for reading this article!  Please share it with your favorite social media network.   Forward it to your friends, relatives, and neighbors.

Thanks for reading this article!  If you’ve been reading posts here or, if you’ve just found this blog, I’m taking this opportunity to tell you that this blog, www.hungerisnotadisease.com and the companion blog, www.reflexologyforthespirit.com have been running for 10 years!  Thanks for your patronage!

I hope you are enjoying this journey we are on together.  I know the blog posts have travelled the world because their companion books have gone out to over 36 countries.

If you have any questions, or comments, please connect with me on facebook:

Thurman Greco

Have you been trying to purchase a book?  That’s been a challenge for a while.  BUT, I think we’ve fixed the problem.  Please try again. If that doesn’t work, please email me at thurmangreco@gmail.com and I’ll send it right out!

You can find an inclusive title list.  Visit www.thurmangreco.com and see what books interest you.  Every title is available in both hard copy and ebook.

Preorder “A Healer’s Tarot Memoir”.  It should be out in less than 2 months!

The YOUTUBE channel, “Let’s Live with Thurman Greco” is older than the blogs and the website.  The YOUTUBE channel has been running with new shows weekly for over 20 years.  Some of the earlier shows never made it to YOUTUBE. When we find them, Renee posts them.

Please check the shows out!  “Let’s Live with Thurman Greco” is a positive, entertaining series of interviews which I’ve conducted over the years.  My guests enjoy being on the show and many ask to return.

One thing we all have in common:  we’ve all met up with each other somehow in Woodstock, NY

With blogs, books, classes and sessions, I am not here to change your story.  I am here as a conduit for your healing.

Thanks again!

Email me at thurmangreco@gmail.com if you have questions or comments.

 

For the Brave and Diligent Shopper

February 11, 2024 at 10:00 pm

Lord, this prayer is for the brave and diligent shopper.  She walks in.  And she never misses a week.

Lord, she is ferociously focused on getting to the pantry.

Looking neither left or right, dismissing the rain, or the cold, or the boiling heat, she makes her way each week through the crowded parking lot.

I pray for her grace, energy, and willpower.  I pray that someone or maybe several someones can witness and celebrate her discipline and focus.

And, I pray that others will notice her voyage each and every week. I don’t want to be the only one who sees her gracefully make her way through the crowded shoppers waiting outside the pantry for it to open.

Lord,  I know you sent her to lift our hearts:  patient, lovely, graceful.  She is our inspiration.

I think of her on shopping days when I drive to Albany for extra food.  She keeps my own work ethic steady.

And, she lifts my heart.

So, thank you again for sending her.

Amen

You can purchase this latest book about the spiritual journey of hunger at www.thurmangreco.com.

Please check out the YOUTUBE channel show.  Renee, our own wizard, loads new episodes on Tuesdays.  “Let’s Live with Thurman Greco” is a positive, entertaining series of conversations with local VIPs that I’ve conducted throughout the last 15 years or so.  There have been a few intermissions throughout the years, but not many.

My guests enjoy being on the show and many ask to return.  One thing we all have in common:  we’ve all met each other somehow in Woodstock, NY

AND thank you for reading this article.  This blog post, and the others soon to come, celebrate 10 years of Hunger is not a Disease.

Find out more about Thurman at www.thurmangreco.com.

Send me an email at thurmangreco@gmail.com.

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Thurman Greco

 

Thank You for the Small Pains I Get in the Pantry

February 11, 2024 at 10:13 am

Lord, you know I do need them, of course.

For each sore shoulder pain or back spasm that goes away after a while:  THANK YOU!

The small pains remind me of all the pantry work that needs to be done every day. When the small pains come around, they remind me to pray for more volunteers.

So, thanks for the sneezing fits and scratchy throats I get every delivery day.

The last time I had a sharp pain on delivery day, I caught myself praying in surprise.  And, guess what!  The entire Roberts family showed up to help.  It was just a miracle – that’s all.

And, one afternoon, I had a shoulder pain during the pantry shift and a volunteer stepped out of the line and helped us all that day.  And, he kept returning every week for several months.

For me, these small pains are reminders that I should ask for help and be ready for it to show up!

What these pains mean is that I should also hold out hope for the coming miracles.

After all, miracles happened and I couldn’t hide from them.  I was in denial for the longest time but, eventually, I had to face facts.  When I finally owned up to their reality, I saw they were special miracles for a food pantry.

Stigmata, relics, icons, and visions weren’t appropriate for the pantry.

Nobody controlled how or when they happened, only whether or not they were seen for what they were.  I wasn’t focused on the miracles because I was busy paying attention to lifting boxes, stocking shelves, filling out forms, driving to the dump with the trash.

And, so, Lord, I promise to try to ask for help when the pantry needs it.

Meanwhile…thank you…and…Amen

THANKS FOR READING THIS POST!  It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?

I have a whole volume’s worth of meditations, devotions, short stories filled with gratitude and thanksgiving.

Please let me know what you think:  thurmangreco@gmail.com.

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My guests are various people whose lives have brought them to Woodstock for a day, a week, an hour, a decade or more.  I can truthfully boast that my guests report they enjoyed the experience and will be happy to return.

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Thanks for reading this article.  Please share it with your friends and family.  Forward it to your favorite social media network.

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It is my latest book about food pantries, hunger, and Woodstock.

ENJOY!