A wax box is a moisture-resistant corrugated cardboard container coated with wax.
Almost seventy years ago, I was born into a closed wax box; one bounded by biology, geography, race, education, religion, and economics.
The box kept me safe from the outside elements; safe from what preachers called “the world.”
Over time, constant exposure to the sun and the elements degraded the wax coating on the box.
One day, as the storms of “the world” raged outside, the top of the box began to leak; an imperceptible drip.
In came “the world . . . .”
Over time, the drip became water running down the inside of the box.
Imperceptibly, the water degraded the structure and strength of the box, making it increasingly unstable.
Other box inhabitants: parents, grandparents, preachers, and youth leaders — assured me everything was fine. I knew it wasn’t. I could see the water running down the sagging cardboard wall.
One day, curiosity got the best of me. Making sure no one was looking, I walked over to the wet cardboard wall covered with signs warning the wall was structurally unsafe. Ignoring the warnings, I walked up to the wall to give it a close-up inspection.
Interesting.
Hmm . . .
I wonder.
Should I?
In a snap of the synapse, I decided . . . well, I chose . . . dammit . . . okay, the sum of my human experience led me to see if I could put my finger through the wet, decaying box.
Quickly and easily my finger went through the box wall, letting in bright light and faint, never-experienced smells.
Thanks to the light coming through the finger hole, I was able to see, for the first time, that the wall was so degraded, I could easily push through the wall if I but dared to do so.
I spent days contemplating what I had within in box and what I could lose if I left. Years later, I realized I underestimated both.
Eventually, curiosity drew me back to the wet, sagging wall.
In front of the wall now stood the preachers and authority figures quoting Bible verses, warning that leaving the box would bring discipline, judgment, physical harm, and death. Several preachers told me that if I dared to rebel and leave the box, I could never return.
These warnings no longer seemed true to me. They sounded more like the words of desperate men afraid that their box cult would be exposed; that I would speak out of school about my fifty years in the box.
I pushed the powerless men aside, and through the box wall I went, exposing myself to bright light and strange, wonderful, diverse smells.
What is this new world that lies before me? Why was I never told about the life I could have outside of the box?
Did the preachers lie? Did my parents lie? Did my Bible college professors lie? Intentionally or not, they lied. They hid the truth from me. They were far more interested in telling me what to believe than teaching me how to think. That which they told me was the “truth” was anything but.
Today, I am twenty years removed from the day I pushed through the wet, sagging corrugated cardboard. I never returned. I couldn’t. There was nothing to go back to. I was banned from the now-collapsed box, and labeled as an apostate, false prophet, and a hater of the one, true box.
I really was someone who no longer needed the box. I was free . . . Box inhabitants confidently told me that real freedom was only found in the box. I smiled and said, “I’ve come too far to look back now.”
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