You are Too Special for Anyone’s Box
For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving. (1 Timothy 4:4)
Humans regularly seek to control our environment by placing others in recognizable boxes. What do you do for a living? Does your last name end in a vowel? Do you have a college degree? If so, from where? Are you married? Do you have children? Each question is loaded with misplaced assumptions and judgments. Controlling and organizing our world around these postulations feels so typical we begin to judge ourselves by the same standards.
Sadly, most of the descriptive boxes we create are shallow and limiting. Whether we are married or not, or if we have children, does not determine our worth. Yet, many people’s boxes define us as such. Some of the most intelligent people I’ve known did not have a college education. My father-in-law could read a 200-page manual on a new engine and, in a few hours, learn how to tear it apart and put it back together. Had he been raised with more opportunities, math, science, Shakespeare, or anything college had to offer, it would not have been daunting.
In “Don’t DO what you love; BE what you love,” Alex Mathers challenges us to focus on more than just fitting into a box but being something substantial. Mathers warns there is “unreliability of looking for passion outside of ourselves.” When we focus our lives on doing, “The search never ends.” We are never enough because the expected boxes change and the requirements for doing so evolve with time. When we focus our lives on doing, we are never enough because the expectations keep changing.
Being isn’t about what we do but who we are. Who we are is not our racial background, the degrees behind our name, or how much we can produce. At its best, the Christian faith has always been about Being rather than Doing. We are children of God. We are created in the image of the divine One. Our value and worth are already defined. The sacrament of baptism is a sacred acknowledgment of our place in God’s universe. Once we recognize our place of acceptance, we are free to do without the pressure of earning our worth. When society attempts to define us by our doing, remember that the only one you must impress is God, and God already found you worthy. Do not let anyone limit you by placing you in their box.