"People who have learned to live from their center know which boundaries are worth maintaining and which can be surrendered. Both reflect an obedience. If you want a litmus test for truly centered people, that's it: They are always free to obey reality, to respond to what is."(R.Rohr "Radical Grace p. 265)
Boundaries are certainly a lively topic. You can see them in issues of immigration, do we maintain are borders? At what cost and to whom? There are of course personal boundaries. An ability to know when to stop, or what to allow into one's life.
I try to have flexible boundaries, but I still have boundaries. While I fully believe in the "freedom I have in Christ," that does not mean anything goes. What I mean by flexible boundaries are ones that can move and adapt to new situations. Not ones that evaporate immediately in the presence of heat, but ones that can say, what I believed to be important at the age of 5 might not be at the age of almost 45.
I do believe that there are parts of our life worth maintaining. There are ways of being that can sustain us for a lifetime. I also know that we can get so stuck that we no longer can see what is happening and for the sake of our boundaries, orthodoxies, or sense of self, we hold onto them with a vice grip and attempt to seal them in an airtight tomb.
In trying to maintain a center, a place from which to operate, those flexible boundaries have a fighting chance. When I only see one direction it is the equivalent of building a door less, windowless wall to the soul.
Blessings,
Ed
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