This world can demand a lot from us. Every day we are urged to do more, to be more, to take on one more thing, to fill every hour of our day in a grind for validation. The world puts us in a box and each thing we take on is like a stone added to that box. One by one they may not seem that heavy, but over time the collective strain puts more stress on us as we try to find a place for all the things everyone else wants from us. As our bandwidth is shortened we are left in survival mode just trying to keep up.
Over time, this box becomes our bunker with walls of fear, scarcity, isolation, and control. Eventually, these walls become too high for us to see over making our world even smaller and our vision more myopic as we just try to survive. As we shrink to this place it is easy to lose sight of our true selves and our closeness to God. When all of our energy is focused on survival, on bearing the weight of holding up the walls we’ve built, we can become emotionally and spiritually isolated. Our fragile box becomes our whole world.
But what if we could get out of our box? What would life look like on the other side of those walls? I think it would look like a sphere.
A sphere is the strongest shape in nature. It has no weak points (corners), it can expand and contract as needed without losing the integrity of its shape. It is flexible, adaptable, resilient and responsive – the characteristics and gifts we need to survive and thrive in a in a world that is in constant flux, unstable, unpredictable, and messy.
Think about your life, your values, your needs, the essentials you need to be your highest self. These are points on your sphere. The connectors running between them are your relationships. The health of all of these elements determines the roundness (health) of your sphere. Sometimes life sends us dents (job loss, divorce, illness, loss of a loved one etc.) but that doesn’t mean that our sphere collapses because there is always energy flowing from those around us to help us respond and reshape.
Unlike the box, your sphere is not alone. It is connected to the sphere of your family, your work, your church, your community. The energy flowing to, through, and between all of these spheres helps define their shape. I think of this as God’s spirit, as a beautiful, shimmering, golden light pulsing and flowing through all of us if we just take the time to climb out of our box to see and feel it.
So, what would happen if we let go of the stones and let the walls of our box fall away? It can feel like a scary proposition. It may feel like our whole world will fall apart if we aren’t there constantly on guard, holding up those walls with all our strength.
Last year I learned what it feels like to let go of my box. I started 2023 with an early morning trip to the gym on January 4th. As I left, I hit a piece of ice and broke 3 bones in my ankle. They had to wait a week to do surgery to let the swelling go down so by the time I could start rehab I was 10 weeks no weight bearing. I couldn’t leave my house without assistance. I couldn’t drive. I was basically housebound for 2 months. During this time, a friend of mine came to visit one night and said “you know, you’ve met your deductible so you should get all your middle age tests this year.” She had a point. I rarely get sick so that makes it very easy to ignore routine check-ups. So, once I was back on my feet (so to speak) in the spring I went to my oldest daughter’s college graduation and then had my first physical in probably 5 years. Have you noticed this lump? Crap! The lump turned out to be breast cancer and further tests identified a second spot. I learned that if there are two spots there are likely more than two which would need a mastectomy on my right side and 4-6 (unpaid) weeks off work.
Everything in my world was turned upside down and it felt like all the walls of my box were quickly crumbling down around me. Broken bones and breast cancer had punched some deep dents in my sphere but those weren’t the only ones. Other dents were being formed from the inside out. My belief that asking for help would be an imposition or a burden on others, that I needed to figure everything out myself because help was for other people, better people. I was creating more dents and making myself smaller by my limited thinking and stubbornness.
I was fortunate to have wonderful friends who rallied around me and called me out. As I was having dinner with 2 friends and trying to come up with a plan to ignore my doctor find a way to work from home they very lovingly, and firmly, said “No you’re not. You are going to let us help you.” Friends across my sphere encouraged me to, kindly, get over myself and accept help. As one friend put it, our faith calls us to wash each other’s feet and your friends can’t answer that call if you are hiding your feet. It was hard to argue with that.
When I chose to accept the call to let go, rather than falling, I found that I was held. By God, by my friends, by community. I had never been alone. The love was always there, the people were always there. God was always there. But I had to let go to see it. I had to get out of my box to see that I had been in the sphere of God’s love all along. The loving energy of those around me helped me reshape and grown stronger than I had ever been on my own. When I let go, I found my path home.
My invitation is to you is to look around you and see if you can see your spheres. Who strengthens and support you? Who is helped by the gift of your energy? Look for the flow, whether you see it with your eyes or feel it with your heart, it is always there. In each one of us, waiting for us. We are designed for community, and we are stronger, rounder, together. The Box tells us to fit in, to be who we are expected to be, to do what the system demands. The Sphere strengthens us to be who we are meant to be, to contribute the best of ourselves to the world and to each other. Find your sphere.
*I wrote this for our church magazine for a series on telling our story and I thought it would be a good way to introduce myself.