Jim Coppoc.

Tonight, I made mac and cheese with broccoli and Spam for my family. It’s basic poor people fare, the food I grew up with. Cheap carbs, cheap protein, and the most common of frozen veggies. But here’s the thing – this food is delicious. And my boys grew up on it. And after a long week of snow and fog and extra hours at work, sometimes a little comfort food is warranted.

This got me thinking – what would happen if mac and cheese cost more dollars to prepare? Same noodles, same powder, just a higher price on the shelf. Would we value it more? Would we call it “cuisine,” and order it at the finest of restaurants? Would everything about his humble meal change, despite the fact that nothing had changed at all?

This is the classic Dandelion Dilemma. The dandelion, most humble of flowers, is at once beautiful, nutritious, and incredibly hardy. But in its hardiness is its demise. Because the dandelion can grow and spread in every kind of crack, soil and climate zone, we have developed a kind of scorn. We kill it with poison. We call it a weed and pluck it from the earth. Familiarity, the saying goes, breeds contempt.

Jesus Christ was a carpenter’s son. A Jewish kid in the Roman empire. Unremarkable in every way except, of course, for being the son of God and mortal incarnation of the divine essence of the Universe. And none of this was an accident. In fact, he consistently lifted up the poor, the meek, the stranger, the sick – and he demanded we learn to see the divine in all of them.

It’s 2025 now. A new year, full of new opportunities. And the opportunity the Gospel offers us again and again is the chance to rethink our relationship to the world, and all the people in it. Where do we find beauty? Where do we find value? Where do we find God?

For me, it’s in the family gathered around the table for a simple meal, or in the simple act of blowing on a dandelion puffball to spread wishes and beauty everywhere (sorry neighbors). Maybe it’s poor fare, but for me it’s filling, and good. As the old Proverb goes, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

Jim Coppoc serves Ripley United Church of Christ at 400 S. Main Street in Traer. After a long career in both academia and human services, he has settled into a comfortable existence as a writer, part-time “Bridge Pastor,” and full-time musician in the memory care unit at the Iowa Veterans Home. You can find Jim online at www.facebook.com/jim.at.ripley.