19 • Locating the Peace Within
“Lou,” Avi said, “a few minutes ago you asked how you can get out of the boxes you find yourself in—out of the blame, the self-justification, the internal warring, the apparent stuckness.”
“Yes,” Lou said.
“From this story I’ve just shared, I’d like to highlight for you what I believe were the keys to my being released from the captivity of my own boxes—the getting-out-of-the-box process, as it were.”
Lou nodded in both assent and anticipation.
“First of all,” Avi began, “you need to realize something about the box. Since the box is just a metaphor for how I am in relationship with another person, I can be both in and out of the box at the same time, just in different directions. That is, I can be blaming and justifying toward my wife, for example, and yet be living straightforwardly toward Yusuf, or vice versa. Given the hundreds of relationships I have at any given time, even if I am deeply in a box toward one person, I am nearly always out of the box toward someone else.”
“Okay,” Lou said pensively, wondering why this might be significant.
“Which is why,” Avi continued, “we can recognize we are in the box to begin with. When we are noticing we are in the box, it is because we are noticing that we aren’t feeling and seeing in one direction like we are in another. We are able to recognize the difference because the difference is within us. Which is to say that we have out-of-the-box places within us—relationships and memories that are not twisted and distorted by blame and self-justification.”
“Okay,” Lou said, “but what does that have to do with getting out of the box when we’re feeling stuck?”
“It has to do with it because it means we are not stuck.”
“Huh?”
“Think of that night with Yusuf under the stars,” Avi continued. “It turns out that I had a wealth of out-of-the-box memories regarding my father. Once I allowed myself to find my way to those memories, a lot of things started to look and feel different.”
“But you could have made your way to those memories any time in the prior five years but evidently didn’t,” Lou said. “What made you do it that night?”
“Good question,” Avi responded. “I’ve asked myself the same thing many times.”
“And?”
“And I think the answer lies in the ideas Mei Li and Mike shared with us—ideas that were embedded in the efforts Yusuf made with me and the others who were on the survival course. Remember how Mei Li talked about the importance of doing everything in her power to make the environment invitational toward peace? That is one of our precepts here. The biggest help in finding my way forward and out of the box was finding an out-of-the-box place, or vantage point, within me. In order to give me the best chance at finding such a vantage point within me, Yusuf helped to create an out-of-the-box place around me.”
“And how did he do that?”
“By first being out of the box toward me himself. For you see, when he approached me that night under the stars, the conversation never would have gone as it did had I felt the blame of his box over the preceding days. I was like Jenny, and Yusuf was like Mike and Mei Li. I was looking to take offense at slights real and imagined. When real offenses wane, however, it gets increasingly harder to keep manufacturing them in one’s mind. Despite my early resistance toward Yusuf, he didn’t resist me back. He helped to create for me, as it were, an out-of-the-box place—a vantage point from where I could ponder my life in a new way free from the blame and self-justification of the box. When I remembered in that way, I was free to remember a past that my blaming self-justification had kept me from remembering. I was free to see a different past along with a different present and future. I was freed from the limitations and distortions of the box.”
“So what is the getting-out-of-the-box process you alluded to earlier?” Lou asked.
“I’ve already given you the first two parts,” Avi answered. At that, Avi turned to the board and wrote the following:
RECOVERING INNER CLARITY AND PEACE
(FOUR PARTS)
Getting out of the box
1. Look for the signs of the box (blame, justification, horribilization, common box styles, etc.).
2. Find an out-of-the-box place (out-of-the-box relationships, memories, activities, places, etc.).
“First,” Avi said, as he turned from the board, “I should be on the lookout for blame and justification—for the signs that I might be in a box. I can be on the lookout for signs of the various common boxes, for example—ways I’m feeling better-than, or entitled, or worse-than, or anxious to be seen-as.
“Then when I feel stuck in the box and desire to get out, I can find an out-of-the-box place—some place within me that is unencumbered by these boxes.”
“And that’s what you found that night with Yusuf?” Lou asked.
“Yes, and in the memories that then came of my father.”
“But what about when I’m not on the trail with Yusuf?” Lou asked earnestly. “How can I find an out-of-the-box place when all hell is breaking loose around me?”
Lou wasn’t trying to trip Avi up at this point. He simply knew from past experience that whatever he was learning from this likely would be swept away and forgotten at the first sign of difficulty. His lunchtime conversation with John Rencher the day before was exhibit number one of this. He wanted to find some toeholds for himself—things he could remember and latch onto when he felt the walls of the box erecting themselves around him.
“Actually,” Avi answered, “since we all have out-of-the-box places within us, finding one is not difficult so long as we remember to do it. For example, you might try to identify the people toward whom you are generally and currently out of the box. Names will come to mind, and simply thinking about your experiences with those people can take you to a vantage point from where the world seems different than it did the moment before.”
Lou nodded to himself. His oldest child, Mary, had just this kind of impact on Lou. She seemed to calm him simply by her presence. It had been that way between them almost since the day she was born. He used to take her on walks to clear his mind after a hard day, and they formed a bond. He read to her every night when she was young, and the soothing relationship they formed had lingered into the present. His next child, Jesse, didn’t have quite the same calming influence. Lou had always driven him hard, whether in schoolwork or sports, and their relationship had a kind of striving intensity about it as a result. But Lou was fiercely proud of Jesse. Was this too an out-of-the-box place? He wasn’t sure. “If you needed to,” Avi added, “you might call or go to one of these people merely to have a conversation or perhaps to ask for help with the struggle you are having.
“Or you might try thinking about the people who have had the greatest influence for good in your life and why,” he continued.
Lou suddenly found himself thinking about Carol and about her steady, devoted influence. “Very often,” Avi’s voice continued, “simply the memory of those people can take you to a different vantage point.
“Or maybe there was a time,” he continued, “when someone treated you kindly—especially when you didn’t deserve it.”
Lou remembered his father’s response when he had dumped their new car into the Hudson. “Such memories can be helpful to me when I find that I am in the box railing against someone I don’t think deserves to be treated kindly,” Avi said.
“Or maybe there is a particular book or book passage that has a powerful effect on you,” he continued, “a writing that invites you out of the box.” Lou thought of The Hiding Place and Jacques Lusseyran’s autobiography, And There Was Light. These were each accounts of people who despite terrible hardships found ways not to be bitter.
“Or maybe an activity or place that does the same,” Avi continued. “Maybe some location that brings back memories of when all was right, for example. For me, I have discovered that Frank Sinatra music, of all things, invites me to an out-of-the-box place! It has this effect on me, I believe, because I began listening to Sinatra when I used to rock our youngest child, Lydia, to sleep. So for me, Sinatra invites me back to the memories of those times—unencumbered memories that give me the chance to think and feel more clearly in the present.
“This all sounds fairly basic, but most people who are trying to find their way out of conflict and bitterness never think to do it. Finding themselves stuck in bitterness, it never occurs to them that they have access to unbitter places in every moment.
“Once we find our way to such a place, we are ready for the next step in the getting-out-of-the-box process.” At that, Avi added a third item to the process he was outlining on the board.
RECOVERING INNER CLARITY AND PEACE
(FOUR PARTS)
Getting out of the box
1. Look for the signs of the box (blame, justification, horribilization, common box styles, etc.).
2. Find an out-of-the-box place (out-of-the-box relationships, memories, activities, places, etc.).
3. Ponder the situation anew (i.e., from this out-of-the-box perspective).
“What does pondering the situation anew mean?” Pettis asked. “And how do you do it, exactly?”
“Could I speak to that, Avi?” Yusuf said.
“Of course. Go ahead.”
Yusuf came up to the front. “What does it mean, you ask? It means that once you find an out-of-the-box vantage point, you are now in a position to think new thoughts about situations that have troubled you. Because you will be thinking about them from a new perspective, you will be able to access thoughts and ideas that may have eluded you while you were trying to think about the situation from within the box.
“Avi found that kind of perspective,” he continued, “under a star-filled sky. This may not be an out-of-the-box place for you, but Avi’s point is that something will be. You need only to identify the relationships, places, memories, activities, book passages, and so on, that have that kind of power for you, and then remember to search them out when you feel war rising within you. When you’ve accessed such a place—an internal vantage point where peace remains—you can begin to ponder your challenges anew.”
“But how?” Pettis asked.
“By learning to ask some questions.”
“What questions?”
“Queries I began learning in a grassy Connecticut park,” Yusuf answered. “With canisters of tear gas exploding all around me.”