Theological Boxes

This week I received a shipment from an online order. I was expecting a small box or bag; I received a much larger box than expected! I started wondering if I had misread the dimensions in the online shopping, or perhaps ordered multiples of the object, or...?

After hastily opening the box, I saw that the order was correct. I also noted that the majority of the space was filled with those plastic bags, whose entire purpose is to cushion items in boxes. I remain disappointed that our society has developed an entirely new product designed to be empty air... not a cushioning bubble wrap or protective peanuts, or even crumpled paper. My disappointment grew as I noted that several of these pillow bags were broken from the pressure forced upon them in the delivery.

While I appreciate the benefit of limiting the number of box sizes at the warehouses that ship these products, it made me wonder about the acceptance of the emptiness, the void, the vast space, needing to be filled with more empty space, in order to conform to some arbitrary standards of convenience.

I reflect that sometimes our theology can be like that: a little bit of substance, and a bunch of extra space, all fitted into someone else’s standard size. What we use to fill up that requisite space may be equally unsubstantial; or even worse: it’s forced to be filler, to the point of wasting other resources.

So how do we then, respond to our theological boxes?

Our first reflection is of course, to do a careful and prayerful assessment of ourselves. This is not easy work, it is a process of discernment with other folks who can guide our soul's paths and hold up the mirror for us to gaze into.

When we find the empty spaces, we can be challenged to consider how and why they are empty. Have we forgotten to include something? Has our theology changed shape as we grew and matured, and thus may not fit the way it used to?

And once we have this assessment, we ponder what action we might take: do we consider changing the size? Shifting away from the norm of box size—or someone else’s theological constructs—may not be easy, but it’s one way to reduce the useless filler.

Maybe we don’t even want to be IN a box (I’m a big fan of outside-the-box thinking)! Maybe our shape is a sphere, or tube, or some other form.

Perhaps our response is instead to change the content of the box. We might increase our theological substance in such a way to decrease the necessity for filler.

Alternatively, we can choose what filler we might use—re-use something already existing, find something that can then be of future benefit, maybe for ourselves or for others.

Whatever we do, I hope that we can recognise in our lives that God has priority status; that God is the purpose of the theological box, not something tiny that’s lost in the corner. I hope we can adjust our own theology in such ways that we know it doesn’t need to be limited by society’s accepted norms, or stuffed with arbitrary useless filler. I hope we can reject the complacency that accepts a void to be filled unproductively.

May we know that the liberating mercy of God ensures that we are not bound by whatever framework the world would assign to us, but invites us to live our faith such that no filler is needed.