In the 1950s and 60s the five-and-dime market was invented and then dominated by two entrepreneurial giants Woolworth's and Newberry's. Like the giants Wal-mart and K-mart today, both these marketing geniuses broke ground for the megastores that have now asphalted forests and farmlands.

The idea both Woolworth's and Newberry's sold was that you could get virtually anything and get it cheap at their stores. It did seem that they stocked everything from dishes to dresses to tools and toys; from a hundred colors of thread and a hundred types of candy to cosmetics and . . . crocodiles!

Yes, crocodiles. Small crocodiles. Okay, they were probably South American caimans. But along with a seemingly endless supply of those remarkably short-lived baby turtles (and at Easter baby chickens), crocodiles were a very popular item among kids who longed for a pet, who only had 75 cents, and who lived in a very small house or apartment. For a few coins they could purchase a six-inch-long wonder: a big-eyed, long-nosed, whip-tailed, (thankfully) still small-toothed crocodile. Kids could feed it a few bugs or minnows while the wonderfully exotic little creature fed their imaginations.

Crocodiles are strange, primitive-looking creatures that possess a host of unusual characteristics. Perhaps one of their most fascinating features, however, is that crocs continue to grow in length, girth, weight, throughout the course of their lives. There's no maximum size for crocodiles to reach. They simply increase at an optimum rate of about one foot per year. In the wild the toll of available prey, predators, old-age, and disease makes it unusual for any individual to make it past 15-20 feet (15-20 years!). But given perfect conditions and health it's possible a crocodile could grow as large as 30 or 40 feet in length. Indeed, that's the point. There's no proven upper size limit for the creatures.

So how could Newberry's sell to a kid a crocodile that could grow up to take over the whole house and eat everyone in it? Every crocodile was sold in a box that was a part of the deal. And a warning went with the croc-in-the-box: Never leave the crocodile outside of its box. Never. Ever. If kept inside the box, the crocodile would never grow any bigger than the box in which it lived. Even though there was nothing genetic to keep the baby dime-store crocs from growing to enormous sizes, as long as they remained inside their boxes, as long as they were never exposed to greater space and freedom, they would stay the same small, kid-friendly size.

The human mind and soul is a lot like those little crocodiles. Given unlimited food, nurturing environment, and a safe place to develop, the growth of our minds and souls is amazing. We've been given the capacity to grow without predetermined limits. There's no point at which your heart becomes too tender, your mind becomes too saturated with wisdom, your soul inhales too deeply of God's love and power.

That is, unless we allow ourselves to be stuffed into a box. (You may want to have some boxes here to show and play with. Or if you Floridians can find a baby crocodile, so much the better!)

A box of callousness; a box of envy; a box of hatred; a box of bigotry; a box of ignorance; a box of preconceptions; a box of fear; a box of apathy; a box of despair; a box of pride; a box of self-righteousness. Most of the time these boxes are self-made. We build them about ourselves thinking we're protecting some precious idea or conviction. The truth is we're simply too frightened, or lazy, or angry to deal with the new information, the new situations, that the Spirit is sending us.

Sometimes these boxes are imposed upon us by the hard-hearted, small-minded, mean-spirited boxes dwelt in by others who have power over us. Take George Dawson, who died in July 2001, at age 103. He outlived his four wives, his four siblings, and two of his seven children.

Born in Texas, the grandson of a slave, George Dawson became a farm laborer at four. His best friend was lynched. For the first 98 years of his life, George Dawson couldn't read or write. Suddenly, he decided it was never too late to learn, so he decided to learn to read and write. Listen to his own words:

"I kept it a secret that I couldn't read. When I traveled somewhere I could never read a sign. I had to ask people things and had to remember. I could never let my mind forget anything. I listened to the news and had to trust what I heard. I never read it for myself. My wife read the mail and paid our bills. People wonder why I didn't go to school earlier. But when I was young I had missed my turn to go. One day, out of the blue, a man came to the door. He handed me a piece of paper which I couldn't read. He said there were some classes for adults. My turn had come. I always thought I could drive a pike as good as any man and cook as good as any woman. I just figured if everybody else can learn to read, I could too."

For nearly 100 years, his name was X. "Writing my real name was one of the greatest things in my life."

"I'm still learning," he ritually said on television interviews when being asked the secret of his longevity. One of 70,000 centenarians in America, a figure that's rising rapidly, at the age of 102, George Dawson published his first book called Life is So Good (2000). (The story is told in The Economist, 14 July 2001, 84.)

Like George Dawson, maybe we find ourselves in a box forced down around us by others. Maybe we've built a cardboard fortress around ourselves. But there's only one way to break out-of-the-box. The necessary tool for escape isn't sharp-edged or sharp-tongued. At first glance it doesn't appear to have any strength at all. Our sure-footed, smart-alecky, success-oriented culture considers our escape tool a frailty not a force for change.

The way out of the box? HUMILITY.

Humility is definitely not a popular quality these days. But it's only through the grace of a humble spirit and open mind that the keys to freedom to a life outside the box is accessible.

A little girl returned home from her first day at school. "Did you learn anything?" her mother asked. The little girl replied, "Not enough, I guess. I have to go back tomorrow."

We ALL have to go back and learn more tomorrow. Between today and tomorrow our insights and experiences will open us up to see new possibilities and new pathways if we're only open enough to consider them and act upon them. It takes a lifetime of humility to be led into deeper and deeper levels of truth.

In today's gospel text Jesus looks around at his disciples. These were leaders who had traveled with him, who had been tutored by him, who had walked with him and who witnessed his works. And yet Jesus knew that his disciples were still not at the place where they could bear the whole of his mission. They couldn't yet digest the entirety of the salvation that he was about to offer the world. The full weight of genuine discipleship would crush their fledgling faith. So Jesus promises them that when the Spirit of truth comes to them after the events of crucifixion, resurrection, ascension this Spirit will guide them into all the truth (verse 13).

Jesus is telling his disciples that they must be open to the gradual unfolding of knowledge, of insight, of pathways, and purposes. They must be open to the ways and wisdom of the Spirit which will gradually reveal to them the deeper purposes of the Father and the Son.

These chosen disciples the inner circle that traveled with Jesus himself, that witnessed his miracles, that broke bread with him every night were being told to admit they had much more to learn. Despite the fact that they were eye-witnesses to the life, teachings, and miracles of Jesus, they were told they were not yet ready to know it all, to understand it better. What a blow to the ego! The most "in" crowd, the most knowledgeable and assured, were counseled to humbly accept their inadequate comprehension and to wait for the coming Spirit to reveal to them the truth, little by little.

In fact, the one person in the Bible who comes across as the most knowing Paul, or as some might call him, "know-it-all Paul" admits that "I do not reckon myself to have got hold of it yet" (Philippians 3:13 NEB).

If Jesus instructed his own hand-picked disciples to accept their limitations, to wait for wisdom from on high, to remain open to the new insights and knowledge that time and the Spirit would reveal, on what basis can we claim full disclosure or complete understanding for ourselves? On what basis can we be arrogant and condescending? To be open to the future is . . . to be open to what you don't know. In fact, when it comes to things of the Spirit, it almost seems that the more we know, the more we know we don't know.

But what we know, WE KNOW. "One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see" (John 9:25). Or later: "I KNOW whom I have believed, and am persuaded, that he is able, to keep that which I've committed, unto him against that day" (2 Timothy 1:12).