OK, so I like melodrama. But it does really feel like my world has ended which, paradoxically it may seem, leads me to be quite happy – because since my world tumbled down, God and I have been looking inside some of those crumpled boxes. It’s been interesting to see what stories lie inside.
I met a doctor a few weeks ago and she commented that in her experience (she’s getting on a bit!) people are best to put their problems in a box and leave them on a shelf. It doesn’t do much good opening them up, she said. ”Really,” I replied, “I think I disagree.”
These boxes don’t just go on a shelf and get forgotten – they become the building blocks of our lives, of our worlds. And they won’t just disappear, they can’t be ignored – problems scream at us to be solved. Problems desire a solution.
I suspect Dr Holditin was a little scared to look inside such boxes in case they belonged to Pandora and all sorts of horrible things were released and she wouldn’t then be able to gather them all up again. I can see that being a problem. But what Dr Holditin doesn’t realise is that Pandora’s isn’t the only box that has something to teach us.
Erwin Schrodinger, a very clever physicist, also had a box in which he kept his cat. Now Erwin must not have liked his cat very much because he rather cruelly shot it whilst it was still in the box…or at least he tried to shoot it. You see, he never really knew if the cat was dead until he opened the box. Until then it was just a possibility, just as an alive cat was also a possibility. So, Erwin concluded, that until he opened the box the cat was both alive and dead. It wouldn’t be the gun that would kill the cat, but the fact that Erwin couldn’t resist having a peak (maybe he did care after all). Unfortunately though for kitty, Erwin’s curiosity got the better of him. You know the rest.
So what am I saying? Well, Schrodinger’s cat tells us that we are participants in the very thing that we are observing. By opening the box, we’re not just passively checking out what’s inside, we’re actually playing a part in whatever’s going on in there. Viz-a-viz, what we see very much depends on what we’re looking for.
If I expect my problems to overwhelm me then they will. If I’m constantly looking for all sorts of nightmarish spectres from the past to haunt me, then that’s what I’ll see. Thankfully the flip side of that is that if I’m seeking the treasures contained in the darkness then I’ll be sure to find them. It all depends on what I’m looking for.
Eckhart Tolle tells the story of a beggar who’d been sitting on a box for years, when a stranger walked by. “Spare some change, mister?” mumbled the beggar. “I’ve nothing to give you,” said the stranger, “But why don’t you have a look inside the box?” “Oh, it’s just an old box – there’s nothing in there.” “Ever looked to find out?” asked the stranger. “What’s the point?” replied the beggar, “It’s empty.” “Why don’t you just have a look?” insisted the stranger. After some persuasion the beggar pried the lid open and there inside it was filled with gold. “See,” said the beggar, “I told you so.“
What the beggar and dear Dr Holditin obviously don’t know is that Pandora managed to close the lid to her box before one last thing could escape – Hope. There’s always hope in the midst of our problems. And as I look into the boxes scattered in front of me and see the stories I’ve been telling myself – stories of how I should look, who I should marry, what I should do, how I should behave – I see that these problems have only been pointing me to a better solution than the one I’ve been trying to build myself.
Jesus said that if we build our lives on his stories then our lives will be unshakeable. Stories that say he loves me as I am, that I am more precious than all of creation, that he has everything I need, that he has been searching all day and night for me and is going to throw a great big party now he has found me. Now these are stories worth listening to.
So what is it that transforms our stories into his stories, that turns empty boxes into treasure chests, despair into hope?
