Broken Bell Jar?

1. "A bell jar is a piece of laboratory glassware in the shape of a bell." -Wikipedia

2. A bell jar "can be sealed, which allows it to be used in a classroom science experiment involving an alarm clock and a vacuum pump. The air is pumped out of the sealed bell jar, and the noise of the alarm clock fades, thus demonstrating that the propagation of sound is mediated by the air. Deprived of its medium, the sound cannot travel." -Wikipedia

3. The Bell Jar--Slyvia Plath's single brilliant novel.

As the main character of Plath's novel, Esther Greenwood, spirals into insanity, she compares her depression to being trapped under a bell jar gasping for breath. "To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is the bad dream," she mutters. "But I wasn't sure, I wasn't sure at all. How did I know that someday-at college, in Europe, somwhere, anywhere-the bell jar, with its stiffling distortions, wouldn't descend again?" Esther was dying under her bell jar.

I am very similar to Esther. When I read the novel and Plath's journals, I'm disturbed by the similiarities I share with them. I have no doubt that I would be suffocating in my own bell jar if someone (My Lord Jesus) had not allowed a couple of nails to shatter the glass.

But sometimes I feel like instead of crushing my jar to bits, he just put a big hole on top of it. Sometimes, I don't see that opening and I still operate as if I am trapped in this bell jar, like I am a dead spider glued into a petri dish for some 3rd grader's bug collection so that all can study me from a scientific distance. But then I realize that I am breathing fresh air. I notice that the world is not dead to me nor am I dead to it. Suddenly, I realize that those who are looking at me see more than my genus and species. It is then that I turn and see the blessesd brokenness, that beautiful jagged opening. When this happens, I'm no longer disturbed by the similarities between Esther and me, but deeply grateful for the differences.

It is because my bell jar has been broken that I am starting this blog. See, without that opening, air would not enter and sound would not escape. I have been given the medium that allows sound to travel and so I am going to show my thankfulness for my mediator by letting the noise of my thoughts travel to you.