Boxing it Up

*Warning - This post may make very little sense. Can't seem to write it out correctly.*

I've been reading from a blog lately. You can check it out at www.closetotheroot.blogspot.com The writer is a newly retired midwife, and her posts are extraordinary. She is frank, honest, intelligent and inspiring! Her posts have been more political as of late, but she wrote a lot about midwifery in the beginning of her blog.

Anyway, she wrote of a book she was reading called "The Last American Man" by Elizabeth Gilbert. From the book, she quotes, "...life is a circle made of up circles yet you all choose to live in boxes built for you by others, without questioning....you wake up in a box, and you drive away from that box to work in someone else's little box cubicle and then you return to a box, eat things out of boxes and watch images of life come through another box, and then you go sleep in a box; real life isn't a box...." Made me think. It scares me to take a good look at my life because I know what I will find - 4 walls, a tiny little box. There is so much out there, and I want to see it. I want to experience what is out there, outside my little box.

Every day, the same. I care for the children - healthy, intelligent children. I care for the house - warm, cozy house. I work in my office - happy, hairless clients (remember, I do electrolysis). My hubby goes to work - safe, secure job. Sunday, go to church - free, obvious church. It's a good life, but it's a limited life. In 20 years, more of the same.

Our news about the Philippines was not well received by all our loved ones. As one of them put it, "What are you thinking?? That's a 3rd world country!" and, when I explained about Newlife being a charity clinic which provides free prenatal & birthing care to the poor, "And you'll be one of those poor!" Yes, true. That's kind of the point. Leaving Canada to go to school would mean liquidating almost all that we own. It would mean leaving our family. It would mean leaving a country that has been more than good to us. It would mean giving up the jobs that have sustained us. It would mean relying entirely on God to provide through the goodwill of others. It would stretch our faith, our commitment to each other and place us smack dab out of our comfort zones.

It would also mean collapsing those box walls. Stripped of all that is easy, all the material stuff that defines us, it will give us an opportunity to really get to know ourselves. It will give us no other choice than to hand it all over to God and his will for us. Hard? Yes. Needed? What do you think?

I want to write more about why Newlife calls to me. I'll do that in another post. In the meantime, what would it take to change my life's shape from box to circle? In my wildest dreams I live in a little shack with no sustenance but a woodstove, garden and chickens. Me, God, the love of my life and my babies.