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Thinking Inside the Circleby Steve Shussett
The phrase “Think outside the box” has found a home in our language and in our lives. It is not the latest and greatest slogan, but each time something new comes along it only proves that someone is always “thinking outside the box.” It is novel. It is different. Everything innovative is touted as “the greatest thing since sliced bread.” But where would we be without bagels or croissants? These are, as it were, fresh ideas, outside the bread box of convention. Yet I must admit, I have grown weary of the expression. It seems to me that this phrase is a semantic house of cards always on the verge of collapse. Thoughts now considered outside the box always stand on the shoulders of giants within the box, and what seems so futuristic has stability only because it rests on what, from the fleeting perspective of the present, is past. A wonderful example of this is found in the word radical. Radical has come to mean “cutting edge” and “brand, spanking new.” Except that radical really means the root of something, going back to its very basics. Jesus was a radical, not because he promoted wild, new ideas so much as that he urged the people to return to the old standbys, such as “Love the Lord your God” (Deut. 30:6b) and “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev. 19:18b). Steve Shussett is the associate for spiritual formation in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and editor of Hungryhearts, a quarterly periodical on spirituality. Join Steve in an exploration of what it means to go back to the roots
of love, community and life. Read the full text of this article in the
September/October 2004 issue of Horizons. Call 800/524-2612 |
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