We all love boxes. You love boxes, I love boxes, we all love boxes.

I’m not talking about moving, I’m talking about how we love to create boundaries around things. Even you weirdos that say you’re an ‘outside the box person’ still find your value as an ‘outside the box person’ based on an ‘outside the box’ box that you’ve created. Boxing things allows us to simplify the way we think and view the world around us. It makes life easier ’cause it reduces the amount of thinking I have to do. If I look at you and place you in a box (which we all do!) then I can move forward with a whole set of assumptions about you, about how I relate with you, about how I should treat you, etc. If we’re being honest, boxes are essential…maybe not beneficial…but generally pretty essential.

One box, though, that I’m sick of is the spiritual box. Ok, don’t let me lose you yet, let me explain first. We love to create boxes around things spiritual and things physical. It’s these boxes that allow some religious groups to pray and never seek medial help. It’s these boxes that cause many Christians to pray instead of going to counseling. It’s these kind of boxes that cause some people to look for answers everywhere BUT their identity in God. It’s these boxes that create an artificial dichotomy that is not beneficial for our health, our healing, and our future.

The reality, I believe, is that everything is spiritual. Everything. Why did I get cancer? Some say it’s spiritual warfare. Others say it’s a disruption in my energy flow because of childhood trauma. Others say it’s a fluke. Others say it’s because I shop too much at Costco. The reality, I believe, is that all those things are spiritual! (Ok, maybe not Costco) It’s not one or the other.

So did I get cancer because of spiritual warfare (I realize this is a really bad term to use that’s loaded with nasty baggage. Please forgive me for using it and take it in its most un-baggaged way)? Hell yes! Of course its spiritual warfare (define it how you will)! Did I get cancer because something got jacked up in my body? Yes! Are those two things mutually exclusive? Absolutely not. The distinctions we’ve created in our western world between the physical and the spiritual is a much bigger blog than what I’m able to write today–but if the reality of Jesus walking on earth tells us anything it’s that the spiritual and the physical are forever and always intimately connected. If the idea of God being a creator God tells us anything it’s that the spiritual and the physical are forever and always intimately connected. If the idea of promised resurrection and victory over death tells us anything it’s that the physical and the spiritual are intimately connected. “Intimately connected” might not even be a strong enough way to say it because the two cannot be separated.

We may spend lots of our time trying to create boxes in our lives around people, ideas, and ways of living–but the spiritual should not be one of them. Everything is spiritual–how we eat, how we heal, how we live, how we love. It all matters and it’s all connected.