THE BOX

I can remember this one time growing up I was probably around 5 or 6 years old and mom and dad purchased a new washing machine and in order to get it out of the box dad cut one of the side panels on the box so it opened like a door in order to make it easier to slide the washer out. And after they were finished hooking up moms washer she gave me the box, which for my age at the time, was ginormous (giant + enormous = ginormous). Mom helped me take the box outside and then as she placed it in the front lawn she said, “Look you have a new playhouse.” From that point on that box became something new day, after day, after day through the power of my imagination. It started out as a house, then it transformed into a fort, from a fort to a castle, from a castle to a boat, from a boat to a submarine then from a sub to a spaceship…well you get the picture. Then one morning I awoke and ran outside to live out my next adventure in the box only to discover it had rained most of the night and my box had dissolved into a representation of a Salvador Dali painting. Well as you might guess I was devastated, distraught and disgusted. My box was no longer usable for my adventures and it was laid to rest in a black body bag and placed by the curb for the garbage hearse to take it to the box graveyard just north of town.

But now every time I see a large box sitting on the curb somewhere I reflect back to a time of vivid imaginations and a mother who not only encouraged, but spurred on my adventurous creativity. Now that I’m grown and 48 years old those memories may still be there, but usually all I see when I see a box is something that’s in desperate need of recycling. What happens to us as we get older? Do we gain so much knowledge that we misplace our God-given imagination? As we get older do we get told enough times that a box, is a box, is a box that we can’t imagine it being anything other than a box? The next time you see a box, take a long look at it and remember that like a box your mind and your life can become whatever you make of it, if you will just set your mind to it, and be open to your God-given creative imagination.