"Good Fences make good neighbors" --Robert Frost
Psalm 16:5-7
5 LORD, you have assigned me my portion and my cup;
you have made my lot secure.
6 The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
surely I have a delightful inheritance.
Boundaries are a necessary part of being a creature, and living in a created world. Without them there would be metaphysical chaos...or metaphysical monotony!
Boundaries and Balance
If the goal of modernism was to impose boundaries (most perfectly realized by Kant), then one of the thrusts of postmodernism is to abolish all boundaries. (Witness the latest step in this direction: the Wikiklesia Project ). But all that is a matter for another post. Here I wish to focus on boundaries as gifts, as a necessary feature of beings whose existence is totally dependent upon their Creator.
Christians--like all humans-- have a difficult time with boundaries, and our Enemy is delighted to have a chance to get us off the mark. Sometimes we err on the side of excess, and turn boundaries into blockades. Sometimes we err on the side of deficiency, and try to circumvent or eliminate them. Then boundaries turn into hurdles or blockades. But Jesus' life shows us how boundaries are to be necessary without being sufficient. He periodically removes himself from people and work to retreat for prayer and communion with His Father. In a pressing crowd, He asks, "who touched Me?" He honors the Sabbath without legalism.
Indeed, the very nature of the Trinity gives us a model of how to begin to understand boundaries. In substance there is unity: the Father is God, the Son is God, the Spirit is God. But in persons, there is difference: The Father is not the Son or the Spirit; the Son is not the Father or the Spirit; the Spirit is not the Son or the Father.
Various heresies about the nature of God have been the result of ignoring the distinctions or magnifing them, while Orthodox Christianity maintains them without exaggerating them. If we are made in God's image, we should, too. The tragedy of sin is that we don't.
Boundaries as Blockades:
Those of us who are blockade-builders have a keen sense of difference, and need to emphasize distinctions. This is fine until those distinctions are idolized, and instead of functioning as fences, they become blockades.
We do this for various reasons. Some of us have an extreme need for order or control. Others fear the unfamiliar and new. We may also have been victims of behaviors or lifestyles that were undisciplined and/or unfair to us, or which threatened our natural sense of justice and self . In response, we swing too far the other direction, and use boundaries in a negative way, to identify what belongs to us or what is due to us, so that others might not interfere and take it away.
An ideal blockade is completely impermeable. Like the Great Wall of China, it is built for defense, to keep out invaders and protect those within from attack. But if we follow this model, relationships become impossible, as we stiffen into solipsistic monads.
Boundaries as Hurdles
Others of us hate to be limited in any way, and so find boundaries confining. They restrict us, and so treat them as obstacles to be overcome or hurdles to be jumped over. We do this for a variety of reasons. We may believe that absolute freedom is the ultimate value, and that anything that inhibits it is to be rejected. We may have been victims of behaviors or lifestyles that made unreasonable demands upon us, and narrowed us spiritually or physically, so that whenever possible, we rebel against them, until rebellion becomes the only way we can function. We are perpetual adolescents. Whatever the reason, if we only understand boundaries as hurdles, relationships will become chaotic as we rush to pursue our own wills, and fail to respect the wills of others, until finally we will agree with Sartre: "Hell is other people."
Boundaries as Stockades
On the other hand, we may have been raised so that boundaries were scant or missing completely. We may have been so ignored or indulged that we have never developed any self-discipline or respect for other people. Then when we are expected to live according to certain boundaries, we resist them, and feel that those who are expecting them of us are scolding us or persecuting us. Again, if this is our situation, mature relationships become impossible, because we will never have progressed beyond the state of a child, and others will be forced to treat us as children.
Boundaries as Frames
Typically, a painting is incomplete without a frame or a mat. My friend Jan is a graduate of the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles. She tells stories about how she would get her husband, Jay, to cut mats for her work. Her instructors expected this, and not without reason. A good mat or frame doesn't draw attention to itself, but helps focus our attention on the artwork, asking us to appreciate it for itself, in its integrity and uniqueness.
But a good frame also functions to unite the artwork with its environment. A frame which is dissonant with its surroundings prevents us from seeing the artwork it contains. Finally, though several interior decorators have thought it clever, a frame without artwork is a sad thing, calling for completion. A frame without its artwork ifails to fulfill its potential.
I wonder if the idea of boundaries as frames might help us out. Frames are boundaries which preserve the balance between artwork and environment. They promote, rather than frustrate, relationship. Personhood "frames" the Trinity. It is how God is able to be all Who He is. Personhood also allows us to relate fully to all Who God is, without falsely relating to Him as three separate beings. The persons of the Trinity do not relate to one another as blockades, hurdles or stockades; so neither should we. Frames are boundaries. God has them. We do too. Let us not be afraid of them. Let us not dismiss them. Let us not idolize them. Let us, like the Psalmist, rejoice in them.
Lord, thank you for the gift of boundaries. May the boundaries we live by be Yours. Forgive us when we misunderstand or misuse them, and enable us to flourish in the pleasant places you have given us.
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