Boxes, Boxes and more damned Boxes ...

This is a cardboard box ... a simple, versatile, quite ubiquitous cardboard box ... it comes in handy to store stuff ... to carry stuff ... and to move stuff ... All of us have, at some point in our lives used cardboard boxes.

Boxes are good ... they give us limits and boundaries, and they help us stay organized and neat in our lives.

But sometimes we are challenged to think outside the box ... sometimes we have things that simply won't fit inside the box ... sometimes the box is simply inadequate.

Yet we cling to the box ... we defend the box ... we will simply NOT abandon the box ...

Bureaucracies of ALL forms LOVE the box and do everything they can to maintain and perpetuate our dependence on the box ...

And then we have a reading like the story of the transfiguration that has Peter responding to the moment where Jesus is joined on the mountain top by Elijah and Moses by wanting to build a shelter for each of them ... Peter wants to enclose them inside a box ...

But the Holy will never be contained inside a box ... The Holy will always thwart our attempts at imposing limits and boundaries ... The Holy will break our dependence on the box ... and if we of the Church can't figure THAT out no one can ...

Thank God for Prophets and Dreamers who persist in reminding us that God's ways are not our ways and sometimes even the most well intentioned are simply and utterly and breath-takingly WRONG ...

It's time to not only think, but also LIVE outside the box ...

My colleague and friend Gord notes that even the Moderator of the United Church of Canada understands this ... too bad many of those front line people in that denomination are more interested in preserving their crumbling boxes rather than letting the Holy Spirit fly FREE ...

Click here to see what Gord and David G have to say ... then click here to read my sermon from yesterday where I offer a reflection on living present to the Holy Wow that exists in this moment ...

In the meantime, there is something to be said for chucking those tired old cardboard boxes in the recycling and clearing up the clutter they truly represent ... but even THAT is thinking outside the box, and such notions are anathema to many in the system ...

Come Holy Spirit Come !!! (the sooner the better)