Thinking inside the box.

Junk has a way of accumulating in a house after living in it for any length of time. There are two ways to deal with the junk, my way and the wrong way. Some people are savers of the junk, some are tossers. It can cause trouble if a saver marries a tosser, because the saver is continually asking, “Honey, where’s my _______.” The tosser has either a) thrown it out, b) thrown it out years ago, or c) sold it on eBay. I only speak from theory here, and what others say. I would never do something like that to my dear wife. I propose that from time to time we should purge our language of useless words and phrases that have piled up, and have a sort of verbal garage sale, so to speak. Here’s the first one I want to get rid of: Outside the box “Our folks think way outside the box…” “We are doing church outside the box…” “I encourage our people to push the limits and get outside the box…” What’s wrong with the box, and why are we desperate to get out of it? “Outside the box” has become a meaningless phrase today. Like a soda can after a few miles in the cup holder on a bumpy road, it’s lost its fizz. Originally coined to represent creativity and the pursuit of fresh ideas, it has slowly eroded into just another innocuous term to reflect the inner reality of one thing: insecurity. Insecure people are the ones who seem in constant need of reinvention. They change cars, clothes, styles, friends, jobs and even churches on a regular basis. This is not out of the box thinking, acting or living. Its only shows the lack of an inner core, a “box” if I may, where identity should reside. Insecure people tend to hide behind the moniker and brag that they are outside the box. But true out of the box thinking cannot exist without a box in which you are comfortable. We all need a place in which to come home and live and rest. I offer a new saying for our culture. I am thinking “inside the box” these days, which means I am learning who I am, what my real core identity is and what my core values are. If more people knew how to think inside the box, I would be willing to bet that our world would actually become a more creative place.