Every Drop of Water
When Covid-19 hit, we turned our community Japanese New Year Festival virtual. Having over 50 community groups and organizations, we released a new video every day in the month of January, leading to our livestream festival day performances. Since our temple is known for selling mochi or sweet rice cakes, we created a video on how mochi is made. (Link to mochi video for those interested: US FY25 WPT2 SIGNAGE 15 16 9 YouTube OFFER) Inserted the message above at the end of our video as a reminder that food sustains our lives and to have appreciation for it.
My mother-in-law talks about how she was raised with the philosophy, “waste not, want not.” I was raised with the teaching above about how every grain of rice is a blessing, so we never left even one grain of rice on our plates. It was just how we lived so I didn’t think much about it until my research as a Human Rights advocate in Model United Nations brought me to a story of a little boy in Ethiopia. The interviewer asked why he only ate half of the pea he was holding, wasn’t he hungry? His answer was that yes, he was hungry, but if he ate the other half today, there would be nothing left for tomorrow. His words have stayed with me even to this day.
Although the years during Covid-19 were tremendously devastating for so many, as any major disruption to society and life does (great recessions, wars, natural disasters), it also brought to light what was most precious or necessary in our lives. When taken away, simple things we took for granted like health, seeing friends and family, and even toilet paper suddenly became precious commodities. Food, which so many people had come to think, “is bad for you” or “makes me fat” and looked upon as something to avoid by dieting, was scarce.
Now that we have somewhat returned to a new normal, as the holidays are coming up it is easy to forget the lessons of just a few years ago. Please remember that food and water are precious gifts from Mother Earth that we need to nourish and sustain our physical bodies and lives. And let us show our appreciation in our actions and mindfulness.