Summer sandbox diaries

As a child, I had a sandbox. I remember it being in the backyard,
under a large, tall tree -- one with long, ugly seedpods that sometimes
fell on me as I played late into the summer evenings. Since we didn't
live anywhere near the beach, my dad must have gone to considerable
trouble to keep it stocked with sand. I've long since forgotten what I
labored so hard to build all those summers, but it must have seemed
important at the time. Perhaps you have a similar memory? I know we had
forts -- we built sandcastles, and being boys -- we probably made a game
of disrupting the girls when they were playing in it.

As we age our sandboxes grow larger, and the toys we fill them with
become more numerous and expensive. In a sense our sandboxes age with
us, becoming apartments, condos, and houses. Like their childhood
counterparts, they too are filled with toys: cars, trucks, boats, and
oftentimes -- if we are not careful to distinguish -- the people in our
lives can become just so many toys, too. We play with them -- they wear
out or break, and we throw them away -- looking for some flashy new toy
that catches our eye. As we get older, we learn to build new structures
in our sandboxes; we find ourselves adding things that we never thought
about as children: our work, our hobbies, our recreation, even our
faith.

It's great being the sandbox owner. We can build whatever we like --
and when it no longer suits our fancy -- pulverize it with a few angry
blows. Just like "I love you" written on the beach before the incoming
tide, our wrecked sandcastles vanish from our lives. Tomorrow is another
day. Tomorrow we will come back and build something that suits our whim.
Tomorrow we will rearrange the toys and the people in our sandbox to
suit our dreams.

Our sandbox is where we display our personality. We may build an
attractive home, a thriving business or important job, even a beautiful
church -- filled with the friends we've chosen to let play in our
sandbox. We control everything, right down to the god we've built to
worship. Like all the other toys in our sandbox, our god must make us
happy if he is going to stay. We have a never-ending supply of sand. Let
our god make unreasonable demands upon us, and we can always start over
in the morning. It's a new day, a new year, a new decade -- and now a
new century and a new millennium.

TRENDING: May the Farce be with you

The gods in our sandboxes know their place. A good god is
comfortable, predictable, and like everyone else we allow into our
sandbox, he must work hard at making us happy. "God has his place in my
life," we assure anyone who asks. And we point to him, over there, right
next to the SUV. Sometimes we even show others how devoted we are: we go
to church, we drop our hard-earned money into the collection plate, we
donate our time and talents to fix the church roof and serve on a
committee. God has an important place in our sandbox.

Which, of course, is the problem. It's our sandbox. Our church. Our
denomination. Our god. We're comfortable with him because we have
created him in our own image, so we're sure he will fit in well with the
other toys in the sandbox. He doesn't ask embarrassing questions. He
doesn't make unreasonable demands. He's safe and predictable -- and when
he no longer is -- we'll pulverize him and build another. After all,
it's our sandbox.

It is our consummate failure as human beings to look beyond the four
walls of our own sandbox, to see the millions of sandboxes surrounding
us. Like ours, they are filled with carefully crafted lives, homes,
children, jobs, and gods -- all in various states of pulverization or
rebuilding, depending upon their owner's whim. Oblivious to those around
us, we worship and play in our own sandbox, confident that everything --
God included -- is in place and under control. Perhaps that is why we
rarely see the movement as the curtains part in the backyard window, or
notice the God who inhabits eternity peering out into His backyard,
intently watching His children playing in their sandboxes.