Don't box me in (please!)
Over the last couple of weeks I have been thinking about the boxes I put people into and the boxes other people put me into - a not new train of thought for me.
I have always disliked and verbally fought against being 'boxed' (unlike my daughter's cat - see above!), and like to think of myself as being able to fit into any situation/group/box! But does that mean I don't have a box of my own? And is being able to fit into any box a box in itself? And have I boxed everyone else outside my 'box'? And how can we be free of being defined and confined by these things?
'It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.' Galatians 5:1
In this I hear that we are freed from the boxes of life - freed to be the people that we were created to be and therefore not confined to, or restricted to certain ways of being, certain attitudes, certain conversations, certain patterns of thought. Rather we are free to explore and to be part of and to delight in all areas of life that are the good parts of God's creation. Freed to be whole and not part. And I have come to think that all the 'boxing' we do restricts and shapes the avenues of expression and development open to us.
There is something about 'boxing' that is about closing down. We did it when we boxed the church into its traditions and defined ourselves by what we do not do/what we do not believe. We do it with our class structures that define what is 'right' to wear and read and think, and what style of life is acceptable. And I am beginning to consider how we do it with our allocation/construction of gender.
We supremely have 'masculine' and 'feminine' boxes, and we find ourselves put into one or other box based on our genetalia. It is then that we discover the ways of being which are contained in the box that we have been given. The patterns of behaviour, thought and lifestyle that are 'allowable' or 'expected' of us. Our 'gender' becomes something we learn how to live out, a social phenomenon rather than a birth gift. It can take a lot of wrestling and confusion to begin to realise we are in a box at all - even more to begin to transcend it.
I have been reading some of the writings of Judith Butler on gender acts and am still exploring what she is saying - forgive my fledging thoughts and please help me with them!
There is also something in here of Richard Rohr's concept of first and second half of life living - that the boxes are useful to begin with but we do need to move beyond them if we are to become whole.
Over the last few weeks, I have experienced the surprise of others when I have openly been 'in the wrong box' in their eyes. I have also reflected upon the missed opportunities caused by my boxing of another. There is much to think about here.
