Perhaps I first heard this term in a British movie or novel. Or perhaps it was my own mother who said in response to my exuberance “Contain yourself!” This is hard to do! Easier as the years go by, self-containment has become a virtue I admire and one I attempt to espouse. Whether it be joy, sorrow, pain, fear, or anger, “containing myself” seems to enable a moment of extremity to become a teaching moment with the gift of wisdom. It is not, however, my natural state! Such containment is a painful and constant discipline.
Imagine God containing God-self in the body of an infant child. Was that painful? Did it take the energy of the universe to make this possible? The images of God’s creation in space that we have just now begun to see through the Hubble telescope show a God of exuberance and joyous dance, riotous color and un-contained passion. But to become a human child took Self-Containment that is un-imaginable and therefore, unbelievable to many.