Kitchen Nightmares and a New Year's Prayer

Somewhere between Christmas and New Year's, I watched a reality show in which a master chef comes into a struggling restaurant and gives them the riot act. Apparently the owners asked for this even though surely they've seen the profanity-wielding chef humiliate and rant and rave, bringing hapless workers to tears.

Granted, it was a TV show, replete with stylized camera angles and shocking moments repeated over and over; and is probably just one step up from Jerry Springer on the evolutionary scale, but I watched it and am still thinking about it now three weeks later.

These poor owners had asked an expert to swoop in and tell them what they were doing wrong. They'd been in business for a while; they had customers, they thought they were doing okay, just wanted some pointers.

What they got was a full-scale condemnation of just about everything they were doing. When Chef Gordon Ramsay went into the back of the refrigerator and scooped up a wet handful of nastiness for a camera close-up, the owner protested that the kitchen was a lot cleaner than it was before he bought it. The more things Chef Ramsay found wrong, the more defensive the owner became, finally stomping off and declaring he'd rather shut the doors and walk away than put up with that kind of "worse than a dog" treatment.

Yes, yes, I know that it was possibly 98% staged, and my writing about it is not to give creedance to reality shows, but to relate how the premise of the show struck me the next morning as I lay in bed thinking about it.

What if I asked an expert in, say, marriage to come in and see all? To move the boxes out of the way, with his bare hand reach into long-neglected places and bring to light the refuse of years of accumulated grime? In the face of a glaring, tell-all camera, would I insist that my marriage (or work-ethic, parenting, citizenship, discipleship) was just fine, better than it used to be, not nearly so bad as the guy's-next-door?

When Chef Ramsay asked the cook, "So what's the deal with these potatoes in a box?" and she said sheepishly, "I mix in a little instant with the leftover potatoes from yesterday to stretch them", I pitied the girl. She must have thought it seemed like a good idea at the time, and surely would never have done it, much less told him, if she'd seen the dastardly deed through his eyes. His admonition, "We will serve nothing but FRESH food" was so simple, so pure, so basic, but had obviously been grossly forsaken.

I can't forget the Instant Potatoes Lesson. How often do I serve up worn-out leftovers, depending on the loyalty of yesterday's affections, assuming, albeit unconsciously, that even half-hearted tokens will suffice? Am I, like the poor cook, lacking in passion, just putting in my hours?

This year, for the first time in years I didn't make any New Year's resolutions. But I do have a New Year's prayer and I ask you to pray it with me. "Expert in all, Maker and Sustainer of all, please come on in. Tell me what you see. Show me the back of the refrigerator. Tell me how it ought to be."