Boxes, boxes & more boxes - I am beginning to feel a little claustrophobic in my office. Reminds me of a Smashing Pumpkins tune - I hear Billy Corgan's straining voice yell out, "despite all my rage i am still just a rat in a cage" from Bullet With Butterfly Wings. It is amazing what I've all put in boxes these past weeks - everything from important tax documents to stories I wrote in grade school to artifacts from Ethiopia & Kenya. I was tempted to call this blog entry "Knicknacks & Artifacts."
I have a kosher grape juice bottle from Israel on my desk that I refuse to throw away. Why you ask? Because it for some reason has sentimental value to me. I went to Israel in 1991 for a college class together with some friends and my grandfather. The bottle contained the juice we used to celebrate communion together in the Holy Land. It's now simply an empty glass container with a Hebrew scrawled label that identifies it was produced by Eliaz Binyamina in 1991. But other than that it is just a bottle that you might find washed up on the shore of Galilee.
For some reason, I've thought a lot about my grandfather this week. I'm not sure why. I still miss him even though he died ten years ago. His impact on me was significant though. My beliefs and passions are largely influenced by his example. He was a man who not only read the Bible but spoke its message to all he met. We shared a common pet peeve. People who said they had faith but did not nothing with it.
Faith without action is dead. I love this quote from Rev. 3:16 "I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot. `So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth." or how Eugene Peterson puts it in The Message - "You're stale. You're stagnant. You make me want to vomit."
Back to boxes - we love to put people in a box don't we. We classify people as pessimists, feminists, environmentalists, liberals, charismatics, new agers, partiers, etc. Ironically - the only real box we can place a person in is a coffin. What categories have you been placed into? What is worse is that we often place God in a box as well. It reminds me of a skit we once did with some junior highers during youth. McJesus. What kind of Jesus do you want? Buddy Jesus - who hangs out with you on Sunday and you put him in your closet the rest of the week. Or do you want a Condemning Jesus - who sends all those people you don't like to Hell!
The God I know cannot be put in a box. He keeps surprizing me and appearing in the the oddest places. I once found Jesus at the bottom of Red Rock Lake. I was snorkeling along the coast in late Spring and swam near the dock and so something very curious below me. It was a picture of Jesus? So I reached down and pulled a picture of Jesus with Psalm 23 written on the back of a plasticized card. Later that summer I was sharing with a good friend about how I had found Jesus at the bottom of Red Rock. It turned out she had lost that card the previous summer while doing devotions on the dock.
I love the show Joan of Arcadia as it is all about blowing up the boxes we place on God. The basic premise of the show is that Joan, a quirky teenager, can talk and see God. God appears to her at the oddest times and with the oddest appearances. He sends her on little missions or tells her to get a job - and amazingly each of her actions affects other people. Some of these actions seem simple but in the end impact someone amazingly. God is present in this world - often in what scares us the most. I'm constantly amazed by how often God plays a role in today's culture - in music, in movies, in books, in conversations, even in blowing up boxes!
What if God was one of us?
Still packing,
G
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