A Happy New Year to you!
When I was a kid, I hated brussels sprouts. Just the mere pronunciation of the words drew a reaction out of me. Even writing the words right now makes me cringe a bit. I would push them away and resist eating them until everyone had long finished their meal and were on to post-dessert coffee. By the time I had bargained down to eating just one of them, it was a cold and lonely torture.
Then one day as an adult, I was served brussels sprouts in a different way. They were fried with butter and spices. And I really liked them! That bitter, grainy taste was mixed and overcome by a crispy, smooth charred and seasoned flavor. I still don’t like saying the words. I don’t go looking for them, either. But I do enjoy eating them when they’re served like that.
In my life, whether it’s in rural Ecuador or urban US, I have found that we try the same thing: Put aside the negative and bring on more positive. We are not all that good at embracing the negative and being happy. And I don’t think we should be. But if there was a recipe that could transform - even transcend - the negative, then we could peacefully accept it.
This is deeply freeing. Why? Well, we don’t realize just how much of our lives is fundamentally based on avoiding the negative and seeking the positive. All the choices we make in life, from the smaller to the greater, from our relationships to work to hobbies - everything - is based on that. A lot of ink has been spilled in psychological journals about it. So, we don’t accept all of life, and we miss out. We miis out on its meaning, its depth, and its inherent joy. At the meal of life we avoid the foods we don’t like, even though they are not only good for us, be we have to eat them. And so, life becomes much more difficult, complicated, and miserable because we are - whether we are consciously aware of it or not - trying to avoid the negative.
But once we have the seasoning and cooking recipe to transform the negative into something acceptable and even enjoyable, then all that begins to change. Like a new year, we realize that something new is dawning, and that we haven’t quite been living yet. That realization comes with its own confusions and internal wrestling as our previous frameworks have to be reconstructed. But it is the beginning of becoming “happy”. Or, as sometimes translated in the scripture, “blessed”.
The person and life of Christ is the recipe for our lives that can transform the negative experiences into a food we can accept on our plate, and even enjoy eating. Joining the negatives of our lives with those of his, adds that charred, seasoned and buttery taste that elevates and transforms them. And a whole distortion in our way of thinking and living melts away. We don’t have to spend the time and energy trying to artificially manage our lives to avoid the negatives. We can be free to make wise choices across a broader vista of possibilities, to choose what is good and move forward freely and confidently. And we can be at peace with whatever shows up on our plates that is out of our control, knowing that it is good for us.
We can be “happy”.
And that is the happy that I wish for you as a new year starts.
Happy New Year!
But we hold this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassing power may be of God and not from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not constrained; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body. For we who live are constantly being given up to death for the sake of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh. (2 Cor 4:7-11)