Of Boxes and Circles

"The ancient people understood that our world is a circle, but we modern people have lost sight of that...Do people live in circles today? No. They live in boxes. They wake up every morning in the box of their bedroom because a box next to them started making beeping noises to tell them it was time to get up. They eat their breakfast out of a box and then throw that box away into another box. Then they leave the box where they live and get into a box with wheels and drive to work, which is just another big box broken up into lots of little cubicle boxes where a bunch of people spend their days sitting and staring at the computer boxes in front of them. When the day is over, everyone gets into the box with wheels again and goes home to their house boxes and spends the evening staring at the television boxes for entertainment. They get their music from a box, they get their food from a box, they keep their clothing in a box, they lives their lives in a box! Does that sound like anybody you know?...Break out of the box!...You don't have to live like this because people tell you it's the only way. You're not handcuffed to your culture! This is not the way humanity lived for thousands and thousands of years, and it is not the only way you can live today!"
- Eustace Conway, in Elizabeth Gilbert's the Last American Man

I had read about this book several years ago in a review in Outside magazine. It received high marks and definitely piqued my curiosity. But something happened, probably sneezed or something, and I forgot about it. I was with the kids the other night on our weekly trip to the public library. They made their selections and offered Dad (me) a few minutes to browse. I began to scan the shelves, eyeing each title and spine. And there it was - the Last American Man by Elizabeth Gilbert.

The book tells the story of Eustace Conway - he left his comfortable suburban home at seventeen and moved into the Appalachian Mountains. And he has lived there for the last twenty years, making fire with sticks, wearing clothing he makes from animal skins, and eating what he traps or catches. Animal skins? Locust and wild honey? Sounds biblically familiar. He emerges from the woods quite often to preach his gospel to schoolchildren and one of his consistent sermons concerns boxes and circles.

Challenge: Think of the boxes in your life. How many can you come up with? Handcuffed to our culture, aren't we? Repent, repent, for the kingdom is at hand. And it's not in a box.