Boxes

When my children started getting older and were no longer content to live in the G-rated world of Sesame Street, and then they even grew bored with PG Disney and moved on to PG13, I was afraid they would turn into disrespectful, foul-mouthed people like the ones in the movies. I survived many years in the PG13 zone, trying my best to protect my kids from becoming contaminated by bad influences. As they have grown into responsible adults who are free to embrace all that life has to offer, I have seen how small the box of my world was.

I had lived with the notion that in order to be safe, one had to stay away from danger. I should avoid any bad input from entering my mind so that I did not become polluted by garbage or led astray from what is right. I thought that I should spend time with people who believed as I did so that my own beliefs did not crumble. I should only listen to experts who shared my world-view lest I adopt false notions. I thought that I must preserve the boundaries of my life at all costs, or I might “go over to the dark side”.

I was in conversation with a person today who sounded a lot like me 15 years ago, and it was eye-opening to hear myself in her from my liberated perspective. As she described what the world inside her box looked like, a few things became apparent to me.

Life in a box contains a lot of fear; it’s what keeps people staying inside. It is the very fiber of the box itself. The box in which she lives only allows certain experts to deliver the truth as they see it, and this doctrine is fairly apocalyptic in its outlook. And the people allowed to speak into their boxes promote the fear that if you do not stay in your box, the world outside will chew you up and spit you out. People also stay in boxes because they’re afraid that they may wander away from God and He will not want to come and find them if they leave their confines and explore beyond their boundaries.

With all this fear, people who live in boxes for some reason truly think that everyone should live in there with them. They may pay lip-service to your right to choose your own way, but deep in their hearts, they are convinced that their box is the only place to live. Everything has a very tight order in that box. The contents are categorized and quantified. The outcome is prescribed and certain. Of course, we should all want to live in such a managed environment, right?

In that box, there is no breathing room. The atmosphere is dark and stuffy. But germs grow in dim, poor-ventilated areas. When all you know is what you’re told to believe, there is no space for original thought, for open dialog or for asking questions. If the only way you know God or the world around you is through another person’s perspective, then the germs of inconsistency, distortion, legalism or hypocrisy grow in your box.

When I realized my box was suffocating me, I crawled out of it and slowly became adjusted to the fresh air and sunlight of true freedom. I discovered that God is everywhere! I also discovered outside of my little box that precious people are truly suffering, living very hard lives, dealing with lots of anger over their hardships, and desperately trying to be happy in R-rated situations.

Maybe it is a cold, hard world, but I have found compassion for all of us struggling to navigate the complexities of life with as much grace as we can find. I have even heard God speak to me through R-rated movies. I don’t have as many answers as I did when I lived in a box, but I ask a lot more questions. However, I do have more love for people than ever before.