Everyone Has a Box
I was asked a question this morning, “What religion are you?” I had to think for a moment about my answer. Not that I don’t know it, but I needed to think about the question itself and how I should respond to it. This person innocently wanted to classify me in order to know from what perspective they should interact with me. They wanted to place me in the proper box.
Everyone has a box, and humans need them in order to perceive the world and its people in an orderly and understandable way. When something or someone won’t fit into or get into a box, it causes us some distress. We don’t know what to do with that - it irks us.
One’s religious box is usually complicated. We may fall under some general category, but the details and particulars of one’s beliefs often vary widely from one person to the next, even within those categories. A simple single label will rarely suffice to sum up one’s religious beliefs. Also, many categories of “religion” are not well known or understood, sometimes even by those who say they belong to them. So, to be properly understood in regards to which religion a person belongs to usually requires a lengthy explanation. When people want to fit something or someone into a box, a lengthy explanation is most often not what they are looking for.
I thought about all these things in a flash this morning as I paused before answering the person’s question. I decided I didn’t feel like getting into a box today, and that a canned simple label would not help them. Instead, I referred them to our weekly YouTube Sabbath lesson, which last weekend and next happens to be about this very subject. I decided that if this person truly wanted to know the answer to their question, they would have to devote some of their time to obtain it. I didn’t do this to be irksome or to distress them, but because I thought it would help this person to better understand both me and possibly even themself – if they were interested in doing so. I also thought that, in the process, they might even discover a new box to place people in which they had never heard of or considered before, maybe even a whole new category of boxes. If not, then they’d just have to be irked and distressed, not having a proper box for me. Or perhaps they could just put me in some box of their own choosing by making assumptions about what they already do know about me. Whatever, and it wouldn’t be the first time that happened.
What box do you fit into? Do you really know? Are you sure? Do you belong and fit in somewhere or with some religious community or group of believers? What is it called? What label do you use? I’m curious.
If you don’t know, are uncertain, or even if you think you do know, why don’t you join us this coming Sabbath and talk about it? We had a great lesson and discussion last Shabbath with our study on “Who You Are Not,” and expect another this coming weekend with the study called “Who You Might Be.” Oh, and if you want to really be in sync with the discussion this weekend, watch the recording from last weekend first. Here are the links to both:
Sabbath Prayer & Study 07/27/2024 – Who You are Not – Sabbath Keepers Fellowship (youtube.com)
Sabbath Prayer & Study 08/03/2024 – Who You Might be – Sabbath Keepers Fellowship (youtube.com)
(Some of you will bridle at the term “religion,” and say you don’t belong to any. That is your choice, but religion isn’t a bad word, even though it has been described as such in recent years.
Religion:
• The belief in and worship of a superhuman power or powers, especially a deity or deities
• A personal set OR institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices
• The service and worship of deity or the supernatural
• Commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance
Paul of Tarsos recognized and approved of the word “religion” in his writings:
“Clean and undefiled religion before the Elohim and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”)