I’ve been packing up these past few weeks, getting ready to move. Today, it was kitchen stuff that I won’t need while I’m still here. To make sure nothing got damaged, I wrapped it all in newspaper, lined them up on the table, then snugged them up against each other in the moving boxes. An hour and three boxes later, I was down to this last wrapped mason jar. As I reached out to put it away, I looked long enough to realize something: this is me.

There are days when the news just surrounds me, blocking out everything else, insulating and isolating in its ubiquity. If I’m not careful, I get wrapped up so tightly that I can’t get past it. There are too many things happening in the world to keep up, in print and video; it can easily become a wrapping, a bubble that separates me from the life around me and inside me.

I want and need to be aware of what is going on in the world, but I don’t want or need to be smothered in newsprint. I don’t want to live in a box; I want to be part of what is going on around me. I want to participate, not hide.