Beautiful Borders
I want to describe a new way to think about where you end and other people begin. In psychology the term is “setting boundaries,” and boundaries are often tricky to navigate, to actually know how much emotional space to put between you and basically everyone in your world. And boundaries can change over time as we make ourselves emotionally vulnerable to safe people and step back from people who behave in hurtful or untrustworthy ways. It’s not easy.
I’d like to give you a fast pass to think about boundaries a little differently. I’m borrowing ideas from two women, one is a novelist from India and the other is a professor at Yale. They write very creatively about borders between countries in different parts of the world, and I’m adapting their words to our personal lives.
Think about boundaries as a border between you and others that doesn’t enclose but rather has the ability to open out. It creates a shape, an edge where both parties can meet. And then in your mind make the border beautiful, embroider it with a shimmering vine or a profusion of flowers. Fix precious stones in your border, give it your own personality. Make it lovely, a reflection of your own beautiful self. It’s not a hardscape but rather a lush expression of self. It’s kind of holy.
A border gives strength, it says, “here I am.” It increases the recognition of yourself to others and it helps you know your own limits with people so that you can stay safe and open at the same time.
I’d also like you to think about this present moment as its own border. The present, the now, is the crossing between what has already happened in your life, what cannot be changed, and what is coming in the future, what the possibilities are in going beyond who you have been to who you are becoming. The present is its own border crossing every day. And we can be mindful and alive to it.
I’ve been to countries with dramatic borders. I’ve visited the so-called Peace Wall in Belfast, Northern Ireland, which separates Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods. The wall is covered in street art, mostly words about hopes for peace and reconciliation. My son Justin wrote on the wall when he lived in Belfast. He wrote, “violence is for those who have lost their imagination.” He took us to the spot but said we could only stay a few minutes because it was too dangerous there.
I’ve been to the so-called Peace Wall that separates Israelis from Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. That wall is also awash in graffiti, some of it painted by the famous street artist Banksy; it too contains many pleas for peace. I’ve been in a town in Jordan only a few miles from the Syrian border, where desperate refugees were streaming in to find safety from the civil war that was destroying their country.
Walls do not make good borders, whether it’s between countries, communities, or in personal relationships. We have to have more imagination than that. Healthy borders can have gates and doors. Yours can open to a secret garden to those who come in peace. Construct your borders with love and creativity, realizing there is a border that’s also in this present moment, separating you from what has been in your life and what can yet become. There is still time.
Finally, Jesus said I am the door. Allowing him to be at your borders means you’re never alone as you navigate your days. Jesus said going through his doorway brings life, freedom and satisfaction, because he came to give abundance, more than we could ever expect.
As we say here, this is living now.