When our children were in high school, they brought home a full backpack of books on most days. Before electronic tablets, bound books and notebooks for six classes could be a heavy burden. I remember helping with the bags while asking our kids if they actually needed everything they were lugging home. No response. I assumed the answer was obvious.
During the school day, lockers provided storage space for books, binders, notes, lunch, and jackets. I observed that the locker was a metal box, just a little too small for all that needed to be stored. Some lockers were kept very organized. Others looked like an archaeological dig, placing the last item used on the top of the pile. The pile approach made it hard to find what was needed.
All the lockers were cleaned out at the end of each school year.
There is the expression “thinking outside the box.” I interpret it as a metaphor for a creative vision that looks beyond the conventional understanding of the way things are.
Thinking within the box is comfortable and secure.
I wonder if sometimes we become content with a box too small, a backpack too burdensome, a locker too narrow.
Sometimes, thinking within the box may be a way we resist recognizing what is truly good for us, where our real security lies, what values ought to drive our lives, and the person God calls us to become.
Outside the box, listening to others’ perspectives can challenge and change us. Perhaps God’s grace operates in surprising places. Prayer can help open us to possibilities.
In the gospels, Jesus invited His listeners to consider the freedom of God’s perspective.
“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)
Faith in Jesus asks us to be ready to remodel our box, sift through our backpack, and examine what we store in our locker – an opportunity for conversion. It is not so much self-improvement as Christ-involvement. We welcome Him to arrange the priorities of our lives. Lent lets us set fear aside and accept the life-changing power of Divine Love to lighten our burden and expand our vision.
As we approach Holy Week, let us pray in our families to be aware of how God’s grace challenges us and how His Spirit guides us to what is of true value, what is holy and good.