Finding the Divine in a Cardboard Box

Finding the Divine in a Cardboard Box

Up until recently Michelangelo’s Pieta was a disturbing religious icon for me. The classic figure depicts Mother Mary holding her dead son on her lap. Does it really get any worse? When I was an adolescent and would see this symbol either in a picture or as a three-dimensional piece of art, I would cringe. Yuck! Who wants to look at that? How morbid! Isn’t God supposed to make you feel good? It only got worse when I became a mother. The notion of losing a child was unbearable. Why would an artist choose to represent the concept of that by creating a big statue of it? Craziness!

To make things worse, my church has one of these effigies in its chapel. Jesus, I am not even with the Romans and we still have to be so damn macabre! Anyway, I sat one morning in the chapel trying not to look at it. I thought to myself, “You may want me to, but I’m not turning my head in your direction Mr. Dead Jesus. Sorry NOT doing it! I am just going to sit here and look at that tapestry!” Then my compulsion took over. Slowly I glanced toward its place on the altar. It was like a car accident. I did not want to look but I had to. And then I was grabbed. The rubbernecking began. I stared and stared. I noticed how much larger Mary seemed than Jesus. She also appeared calm and easily able to maneuver a man-sized corpse. Suddenly tears welled in my eyes and poured down onto my shirt. I was filled with a realization that God holds us in our misery and that Jesus in the Pieta represents human brokenness on the deepest level possible. It was all so sad and happy at the same time. For me to be able to hold the tension of an infinitely caring God allowing Her creation to suffer so much, and for me to accept that, was huge. God’s purpose is not to make mine or anyone else’s lives peachy and happy but that God is big enough to hold the desolation of humanity and the goodness of the world all in one package. I realize none of these ideas are novel but at the time it felt like a personal breakthrough.

My next step was to order myself a miniature Pieta (sometimes retail therapy is necessary after a theological discovery). I found the perfect one. It was even made in Italy not China! The package arrived in about 10 days. It sat there on the kitchen table; a cardboard cube begging for me to open it. I approached it with shears only to find another hallowing event waiting for me inside. I pulled the statuette out and immediately had a flashback to my childhood.

It dawned on me that this was not the first time that God came to me in a cardboard box. In 1980 my family was living in Maryvale (a Suburban development in West Phoenix). Our house was a 1950s ranch style home that hadn’t been updated since maybe 1960. The lack of modern appliances spurred my parents to buy a brand new, Almond, side-by-side refrigerator. The best thing ever was included with the fridge-freezer, a large cardboard box! I promptly laid the container on our unkempt back patio. I fashioned windows with scissors and hung make shift curtains. I stocked it with blankets, stuffed animals and crayons. I drew designs and pictures on the inside. This was my refuge. I loved being in there, hidden. My mind would wander and I would create stories in my head that entertained me for hours. One afternoon I retired to my abode and stealth fully took a doll house size “bible” with me. I had obtained this contraband literature at the State Fair. A fundamentalist was preaching in one of the crowded exhibit halls and his counterpart handed it to me. My mother saw and quickly stated, “Oh God! Those people, always trying to shove their religion down people’s throats. My mother gave all her money to those assholes and she never gave me a dime!” I knew the reading of this prayer book would not set well with my mom, so, of course I snuck it into my fort. I sat there and read the abridged passages and it happened. God came. A presence that can only be described as divine encompassed me and I knew all would be well in my world if I could rely on this personal truth. I understood that God was omnipresent and benevolent . I knew without being able to name it. I trusted and I was hooked.

I realized, as I stood holding my brand new Pieta that God makes Herself present in lots of places and my initial experience sitting in that box was as true and valid as any encounter with God I could have had. It also dawned on me that my years long resistance to the Pieta was just my fear that if I admitted that life is truly awful sometimes it might negate the existence of God and thus invalidate my early experience. That sanctifying moment in the chapel proved otherwise, because God was there too.

My Pieta currently sits on my dresser and I am thinking of incorporating it into a cardboard shrine. Michelangelo would be proud.