Borders
Issue 5
Spring/Summer 2021
Limitations form the borders of our life and its story giving it shape and meaning; much as each genre has its own conventions giving it its distinct character or a game its rules. Without these limitations the game would not be fun or the novel interesting. Nor would your life without its imposed boundaries have any meaning, just as a word which means everything, in truth, means nothing at all.
In the realm of fantasy fiction where the supernatural and the magical abound this is particularly true. In realistic fiction the limits of the story are largely set for you by the time period, setting, or the normal limits of everyday life. In fantasy it is easy for the writer, because so much of the fantastic is allowed, to let his imagination run wild. But all truly great works of fantasy, such as the Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, are great precisely because of the boundaries they impose on themselves; for what they do not allow to be possible.
Borders are all around us. Our entire social lives are a series of borders as is the natural world we inhabit. There are borders between different biomes. Borders between those who are family and those who are not. A border to the earth’s magnetic field. A border between the duties of our job and that of another co-worker. In any of these cases if the border was entirely removed it is not hard to imagine the ensuing chaos. Life itself is contingent upon borders.
However, boundaries often have a negative connotation. They are something we are forbidden to cross; something that keeps us locked in. They separate and divide. And there are many cases where this is true. If a border is too strong it becomes stifling and crippling. But, boundaries also keep us safe like a guard rail on a highway or the hearth for a fire. Borders are, like most things in life, a double-edged sword. A nation’s border can protect us and create stability but it can also produce suffering. This is something the people of Syria have been well acquainted with since the Spring of 2011. The border which was meant to protect them, when their country fell into civil war, became the thing which trapped them in a near hellscape.
Consider a cell. Every cell has a membrane which distinguishes it from other cells and the outside world. That border must strike a balance and remain semi-permeable. If its membrane is impenetrable then it cannot take in the energy it needs nor expel its waste. If it is completely permeable it cannot protect itself from virus’ or other enemies. Without any border the cell’s contents would simply spill out into its environment and be absorbed by other cells. In both cases it spells the death of the cell.
Another way to look at borders is by seeing it as a dichotomy between openness and closedness. Setting a border is always a decision of how open or how closed I want my life to be. And the proper balance is often dictated by the particular circumstances. In one situation being more closed is better and, in another circumstance, the same degree would be unhealthy and counterproductive. The border between the US and Canada can, because of numerous circumstances, afford to be more open, while the one between Mexico sadly cannot. Being open-minded is a necessary thing but at some point, one must make commitments, decide on loyalties, and form opinions. It is as G.K. Chesterton once put it, “Merely having an open mind is nothing. The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.” Neither being open minded or closed minded is inherently a virtue or vice. Rather they are both necessary stages in making decisions. We must continually exercise both during the course of life. Either extreme is a ditch we ought to avoid. Even when we have settled on a course of action or formed a solid opinion we must maintain an open mind, as when we are learning, seeking answers, or wrestling with a problem, we must not be gullible or undiscerning.
This is the truth about borders: they can give us life and they can also destroy us. And this truth permeates all of reality from the smallest sub-atomic particle to the most complex and abstract of human social systems. The border is the point of contact between chaos and order. It is the place where that ancient cosmic battle is played out. Too much chaos and we get death. Too much order and we get death. This battle between chaos and order is visible in the creation story in the book of Genesis. “The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters” (Genesis 1:1). The story begins with the waters of chaos. It begins without form, that is to say without any distinction or boundaries. The rest of chapter 1 is a series of separations and distinctions where God sets boundaries between things to create beauty and life. “Then God said, “Let there be a [c]firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.” Thus God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so” (Genesis 1:6-7). And again, in verse 14, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night.”
Borders gave shape to God’s creation, but borders also kept Adam and Eve barred from the garden after their transgression. A border also kept the souls of the departed trapped in hell till Christ shattered that border when he harrowed hades. The entire story of salvation is one of erecting the right borders and tearing down the wrong ones. Christ in his incarnation tears down the border between divine and human. In his ministry he tears down social boundaries between the sick and the well, between the rich and the poor, between the Jew and the foreigner. Saint Paul in his letter to the Galatians summarizes it this way: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”
And this task of setting border right begun by Christ was handed over to us, his people, to complete. Maximus the Confessor, one of the great Church Fathers of our tradition teaches that man was created last precisely to carry out God’s work of uniting divisions and shattering borders between things. Maximus writes, and I will paraphrase “mediating between extremes and unifying through himself things that by nature are separated from each other by a great distance, the human person might gather all things together and lifting them up to God bring about the union of all things in God, in whom there is no division.”
This then is the task set before us to set the borders of our lives and our world right. And it is no easy task. The work of creating a more just world or a more righteous life is very much a problem of getting our borders right. However, it is not as easy as simply erecting new rules or higher walls. Nor is it merely tearing them all down. This is the mistake of our present political and cultural wars. It is finding the balance which leads to a flourishing of life. This balance can be seen in our theology of the Trinity. The three persons of the Trinity are distinct but not separate. They are one yet three. It can also be seen in the incarnation where the border between the divine and human is kept. It is a border which unites, yet preserves the integrity of each.
In its most abstract and ultimate sense our religious tradition’s theological approach to borders is a reflection of the Trinity where that balance resides and originates. We are then, when we set a healthy boundary in a relationship or between our work and private life, imprinting a mark of the Holy Trinity in the world. We are in a sense imitating God. And that is what all of creation was meant to be and what our labor as the Church, the body of Christ acting in the world, is meant to bring about, a reflection of God as Trinity – which is merely to say love itself.
Many of our societal problems are problems of borders as are those in our personal lives. We’ve failed to set proper boundaries in our relationships and issues of abuse or isolation emerged. We failed to set prober boundaries to our profession, and it harmed our family or led to acts of corruption. There is a boundary to what money is mine and what belongs to my employer. Our leaders have not set proper boundaries to their public service and have failed to distinguish between what is in their interest and what is the interest of the public good. We’ve erected walls which keep some people poor and some of our borders keep us isolated from each other, and as a consequence ignorant and afraid. We have even failed to properly erect a border around human life and its sanctity.
Many of the theological questions that challenge us today are questions of borders. Who is saved? What are the limits of the church? Or what are the roles of women in the church? The challenges to parish life and ministry are also questions of borders: How we do outreach; How we receive converts. When we change the way we do ministry is a question of “what is the border between the church and the world?”
Change is almost a dirty word to us Orthodox, yet we have and must continue to change lest we set a border so secure from the pollution of the outside world that we succumb to the fate of all those who set the walls of their borders too high: death. True, we are “in the world and not of it”, but we are still in the world. Our goal as a church is not to hide or merely defend ourselves against the world, but to conquer it and transfigure it. And we must remember that the borders we erect are not permanent. They must change as the environment around them changes or they become obsolete and useless – like some ancient city wall which no longer encompasses the breadth of the city. Unless it is expanded can no longer protect against the barbarians.
We ought to heed the lesson of the cell. A membrane too impermeable, and we starve; too porous, and our contents spill out. If we think that we have nothing to learn from the culture, philosophies, or religions around us then we starve (and betray our Orthodox of heritage of doing such things). If we imitate and blindly incorporate the current trends in thought or culture, we run the risk of making ourselves indistinguishable from the world and blending in till we disappear (and repeat the mistakes of some other Christian traditions in our own time). We must find a way to preserve the integrity of our own tradition while learning from and engaging with the world. Then we can hope to offer something that is Good News, and avoid the common mistake of answering questions no one is asking. As the church (and also in our own individual lives) we ought to strive to set borders that are incarnational: ones that unite us and also make us more uniquely ourselves.
Featured Essays
Letter from a Fictive Country: Seeking Stability Inside War-Torn Azerbaijan - Deacon Ezras Tellalian
The Church as a Living Organism - Fr. Isaac Skidmore
“For Kings and all who are in Authority”: On Political Power and the Kingdom of God - Fr. Philip LeMasters
The Eucharist and Public Life - Dr. Will Cohen
Walls and Ditches - Fr. Bohdan Hladio
Diocesan Life
Breaking Language Barriers - An Interview with Jose Alberto Sanchez
Stewardship and Ecology - Fr. Terence Baz
“We Were on the Frontlines”: A Doctor Looks Back on the Pandemic Year - An Interview with Dr. Carol Holobinko-Haluszczak
St. Basil’s House - Katie Sorensen
Sparks of the Divine: Commemorating Archpriest Nilus Lerro - Nick Tabor
Articles
Suffering in Silence: Opening Up About Miscarriages - Matushka Rebekah Markewich
Community After COVID: Reflections on (Re)-Opening Our Parishes - Fr. David Garretson
The Theologians of Grace, Place, and Space - Reader Adedoyin Teriba
Album Review: Spillingion, by Spillage Village - Femi Outlade
The Fog and the Swifts, a Poem - Roy Meador
Blank Page, a Poem - George Fillingham
An Orthodox Teen’s Perspective on COVID - Beatrice Olderog
Kid’s Page (Step by Step Drawing, Coloring Page)
Diocesan Graduates