How to be delicious!
Things that have caused us distress through our lives have made us more sensitive and compassionate to other circumstances. They’ve made us able to go beyond ourselves to others, which becomes the fruit of our lives and gives our days meaning. Our lives shift from, ‘What do I get out of this?’ to being able to spend ourselves and to be life-giving for others.
The different fruit each of us produce will be borne out of our unique life experiences. A tree doesn’t need to stress in order to produce fruit. It simply yields itself to the unconscious process and transformation inside and patiently waits for the fruit, which will nourish the world, to manifest. Jesus says, “We will be known by our fruit.”
Amazingly God uses broken people like us to change the world and to give it its flavour. It may seem that what we do has a small and limited effect but we are all part of a bigger drama that is unfolding. All we need to do is to be willing to yield to what God is doing in and through us. It won’t necessarily be in the big, noisy things though it might be. The way we bear fruit will be through an intuitive voice in us which says, ‘I have to do this,” or “I’m on this time,” even though others may think we are crazy. These risks will mean going against the picture we have of ourselves in our heads which tell us that we can’t move out of ourselves. As we are liberated from our fear, our autonomy will liberate others.
Our fruit comes from God but what we give will be dead if it is purely functional and if we do not include the relational and emotional component. It is so often out of our struggle and pain that our unique fruit is produced. Our particular wounds that are transformed give us our special flavours. Each of us will have something specific asked of us. We will need others with us to help us take the risks required in order to put our best effort into that. God is calling us to fruition, to doing things not to frustrate us but to give us joy and fulfillment and to fill our lives with meaning. Then we’ll be truly delicious – just what the world is longing for!
