Wasting Spiritual Food

Gawthorpe Hall in Padiham has raised its admission charge. It used to be three pounds, but now it is seven. Allowing for inflation and the National Trust’s financial management, I was also pleased to learn that they have opened more of it up. One may now enter the Victorian kitchens on the bottom floor, an area previously sealed off. Although there is plenty of unpleasant, modern flooring, there is also a rather grand fireplace over which are the words:

Waste Not Want Not

The United Kingdom wastes approximately 9.52 million tonnes of food every year, of which 70% of comes from households, 16% from manufacturers, 12% from hospitality and food services, and 2% from the retail industry. Shameful, no? When food was dear and bellies empty, nothing was thrown away which could have been eaten.

I wonder if this may be said of spiritual food, too. Preached sermons lost in the air, Christian books wasted on shelves, inspirational biographies gathering dust, Bibles laying on coffee tables like ornaments. If it shameful to throw good, physical food into landfill, how much worse is it to casually neglect that which nouriches us beyond the grave?