On Boundaries

Liturgical Materials for Sunday the 13^th of October, 2002

Mark Belletini, Minister First Unitarian Universalist Church of Columbus, Ohio

Opening [Next] [back to top]

We are here
to celebrate that we live,
and live together on this spinning earth.

Alone and separate, joined and apart,
we too are part of the great and beautiful dance
of the circling heavens; we too are part of
the waltz of autumn birds, and wind-lifted leaves.

And now, as we begin our celebration, we pray

May our reason and passion keep us true to ourselves, true to each other,
and true to those shared visions of what we can together become

Sequence [Next] [back to top]

All life is a stage, the bard said,
and we are all players.

True enough, I suppose, as such truths go.

And so now I ask you to look with your mind's eye, and note that the stage is indeed set,
with stars on the backdrop, and sunbeams
focusing their brightness on a single tree trunk
or human face. The sheet making the thunder
has been struck, the rain is in the pipes overhead.

The orchestra is ready too…
hints of Sondheim and Bernstein and Rodgers float among the trees in the songs of autumn birds
and echoing football cheers in distant stadiums.

The great texts of the playwrights are in
our minds, and we pray we won't forget our lines once the curtain rises:

Love one another. Tell the truth.
Reason carefully, taking context into consideration. Don't be gullible. Set limits.
Play daily. Breathe deeply.
And don't be afraid to sit in silence sometimes,
alone or together.

(silence)

Like any stage play, the cast here is varied, the plot complex. There is love on this stage, and remembrance of loss, and betrayal, and sadness, and there is wisdom here, and joy. And now, just before the curtain rises, we can see the whole cast on, or just off, stage…I, for one, want to name their real names, not their stage names, inside my heart. I want to do this with silent admiration and thanks, or even aloud on the stage, as a centering prayer before the play begins…

(naming)

The musicians are ready. The anticipation quickens in the singers. And now, the curtain rises.

First Reading [Next] [back to top] is taken from the Preface Robert Bolt wrote to his play, A Man For All Seasons, about the life and death of Sir Thomas More, Chancellor of England in the days of Henry VIII. It was written in 1960. Bolt uses an unusual word, adamantine, which I will define for you. Ada-MAN-tine means: As hard and brilliant as a diamond.

Thomas More, as I wrote about him, became for me a man with an adamantine sense of his own self. He knew where he began, and where he left off. He knew what area of himself he could yield to the encroachments of his enemies, and what to the encroachments of those he loved. It was a substantial area in both cases, for he had a proper sense of fear and was a busy lover. Since he was a clever man, he was able to retire from those areas in wonderfully good order. But at length he was asked to retreat from that final area where he located his self. And there this supple, humorous, unassuming and sophisticated person was overtaken by a rigor, and could no more be budged than a cliff.

This account of him developed as I wrote. What first attracted me was a person who could not be accused of any incapacity for life, who indeed seized it in great variety and almost greedy quantities. But nevertheless he found something in himself without which life was valueless.

Second Reading [Next] [back to top] comes from the most excellent book, Many Roads, One Journey by Charlotte Davis Kasl, 1991, the best single book I know right now that addresses a reformatting of the well known 12 Step Process to overcome addictions. This is not a brief reading, but I thought that all of it is important.

Boundaries define what belongs to an individual on a physical, psychological or spiritual level. One of the most important survival tools a person can develop in a hierarchical system (like our society) is an understanding of boundaries.

Dominants in a hierarchical system regularly control those below them with a multitude of boundary intrusions: touching, encroaching on their physical space, interrupting, imposing their ideas. If confronted, they usually deny the intrusion flat out or say they don't understand what all the fuss is about, leaving the other person feeling confused and crazy.

A physical boundary defines your personal space and allows you to control how you are touched and how close people come to you. In the course of human relationships, no one has a right to touch or hug anyone else without their consent.

A psychological boundary is defining your right to not be analyzed, shamed, manipulated, or lied to. It is your right to say no and have that respected without having to give explanations or defend yourself. A psychological boundary is crossed when people say one thing and do another. For example, abuse of children is often accompanied with the confusing statement, "I am being sexual with you because I love you," or "I am hitting you for your own good." Children try to cope with mixed messages by saying "Something must be wrong with me," or "Maybe I made it up," or "I deserve to be hit," or "I better be good or they'll leave me." If limit setting and rules (in the family of origin) were capricious, inappropriate, missing, illogical or based on the needs of the caregiver, a person may grow up to resist any kind of limit, because limits are associated with unfairness and control.

Psychological intrusions can involve making assumptions. For example, when a person says, "No, I don't want to," an intrusive response would be, "That means you don't care about me, or you don't like me." Another common violation I see is when men call women "prudes," "unloving," or "too serious" when they express dislike of sexist jokes.

A spiritual boundary is when one person objectifies another person in any way (as cheap labor, a sex object, or status object) and blocks them from developing their full potential. All objectifying, stereotyping, and defining one group of people as less than another group of people is a spiritual violation.

Sermon: On Boundaries [Next][back to top]

When I was in seminary, back in the mid- seventies, the issue we all talked about was gender. Everyone read the electric books of the great feminists, especially Mary Daly, whose words seared the soul like lightning bolts.

There were constant discussions between men and women about what it meant to be a man or what it meant to be a woman. I remember that Agnes Zuniga and I spent almost four hours one afternoon passionately debating a sermon on these issues which she had delivered in the school Chapel that morning.

Many such conversations just didn't sit well with me at the time. Not that I didn't understand the patriarchal nature of Western society, with men at the helm and women treated as second class citizens for three thousand years. Not that I didn't understand that there were real issues and differences to talk about at a deep level.

No, my discomfort was with linking males to one set of characteristics and females to another set of characteristics, as if they were utterly different species. When folks would say things like, "Men don't cry easily, you know," I would say, "But I do." When I would hear men say that women were good at relationships and not so good at numbers, I would remember my unschooled grandmother and her Univac 9000 brain, able to calculate the practical value of a handful of pennies during the Great Depression just like that. In those years I found I could always come up with a thousand exceptions to the sweeping categorical statements I used to hear almost daily.

A decade later, still unhappy with the memory of these discussions, I stumbled across an essay of a psychologist at UC Berkeley, whose name I unhappily no longer remember. The essay was in one of those free newspapers, and it was based on the earlier ideas of some other thinkers. But what I remember is that this woman felt the same discomfort as I did about such clean distinctions based on gender. To address her discomfort, she spoke instead of two kinds of characteristics that help us to be fully human beings, no matter whether we identify more as male or female. She spoke of communion characteristics and agency characteristics. Communion characteristics are those that tear down the walls between us, those that are more relational. Communion characteristics are the ones that create our friendships and our relationships with lovers and spouses. They enable us to weave communities like this one, and to question the categories we human beings often use to lump each other into convenient, but often limiting, pigeon holes…race, ethnicity, gender, class, age, education levels, sexual identity etc. Communion characteristics are about being, not doing, yes, not no.

Agency characteristics, conversely, are about doing, not being, no, not yes. They are about the walls we build, the boundaries we keep, the edges we create in order to get things done. Agency characteristics involve our reason and our critical mind, our organization skills, rule making abilities and even, perhaps, a few helpful categories, such as the ones I'm talking about now.

All human beings, this psychologist said, whether male or female, need both agency and communion characteristics in some sort of balance in order to be whole and healthy.

Balance is the key to wholeness and health, of course. Someone with an imbalance of agency characteristics might seem like a Nazi, or a tyrant, an unconscious person who steps on people all the time and blames others. Conversely, someone with too many com-munion characteristics might seem like a smiling air-head, someone irresponsible and equally unconscious about the harder realities of our society or even her/his own life. Thus, balance is the key to a healthy life.

As soon as I read this psychologist's subtle meditations, I knew I had found a way to express understandings about our differences without confining myself to gender words alone.

Now, many of the social sermons a minister might offer lift up the communion characteristics among us, the ones which weave community and connection and depth of intimacy. This morning, I guess I am talking less about communion than about agency. This morning, I am talking about the boundaries we place between us that make for health in our personal lives and in our community lives.

Robert Bolt talks about agency beautifully when he speaks of Thomas More in his preface to the play A Man for All Seasons: "He knew where he began and where he left off." I use that terrific phrase all the time in talking about the kind of folks I truly admire. They know where they begin and where they leave off. They know when to allow encroachments and when not to. They are open and loving, like Thomas More was, but they also know when to draw the lines and say enough is enough. Like More, these people know that there is a center so valuable in their life that to lose it is to lose the value of life itself.

Let me give you an example of a boundary between people. I remember when my best friend found out he had AIDS. He was, understandably, thunderstruck for weeks. Certainly both of us cried a lot. But then he decided he wanted to figure out how he wanted to face this illness emotionally. So he started to read the psychologists: Freud, Jung, Karen Horney, Adler, Rollo May etc. One after another, a vast undertaking, a whole library of information to digest. And, during this time, he called me up two and three times a day to talk about what he was reading. He would call me in the morning, afternoon, and at night. Finally, I found myself feeling both angry and sort of crazy about these calls. I was being objectified as some sort of guru, and had ceased to be a friend. My boundaries of time and attention were being crossed daily, as if I had infinite energy. I told him this several times, clearly, but the calls continued. So I decided to set a very certain boundary for him.

"Stefan, I have told you I cannot relate to you in this way. I will take no calls from you for a month. After that, I will take no more than a call a week about these things."

Stefan was shocked, but agreed to my terms. It was a tough month for me, and I know it was for Stefan too. I missed my best friend. But the thing is, I had missed him for a long time. Being his guru meant he wasn't my friend, because a guru, like a doctor, dentist, professor, teacher, psychologist, minister or other so called "people professionals," simply isn't friends with those that come to them, or may come to them, for counsel, or medical work, or information. It's inappropriate, and blurs very necessary professional boundaries. Actually, that month without Stefan was a good time for me to remember who I am as a person and friend, not a guru. For you see, I too had crossed a boundary…by letting my professional role completely overtake our equal friendship. I, too, had contributed to throwing things off balance. So I was establishing a boundary, not just for Stefan, but for myself. At the exact moment the month was over, Stefan called and said, "Can we talk as friends now…with me promising not to invade your life like General Hannibal and his elephants charging across the Alps?"

"Of course we can," I said with teary eyes. "I've been waiting for this day all month. And I apologize to you for trying to rescue you from your own feelings by not facing my own." And our friendship deepened and delighted us both up to the very moment of his death, two years later.

Boundaries are what enable us to maintain our identities as individual people in relationship or in communities.

Charlotte Kasl lists a few of the ways that we cross boundaries in her reading, but certainly there are many more. She begins by listing one of the most sad, that is, improper touching. And I am not just talking about touching children, either. In one of my former congregations there was a church pillar that everyone deferred to all the time, because he was pretty wise about church stuff. But he also had roaming hands, and during coffee hour, he would put his hands on women's behinds, patting them ever so gently. Finally one woman had enough, grabbed his wrist, and twisted it. She said to him loudly and quite publicly in the coffee hour, "Do not ever do that again."

I assure you, he didn't, although he was one of those folks Kasl mentions in her reading who didn't understand why this woman "made such a fuss about it." He tried to shift the blame to her and her "over-sensitivity." Please note, when blame is being passed, you can be pretty sure important boundaries have just been crossed.

For this woman was not overly sensitive. The man, however, had grown insensitive over the years. By setting a boundary in the way she did, this woman enabled her relationship with this man…they were good friends, by the way… to continue in community. This is a dramatic example of how we can help each other to grow more sensitive, and, at the same time, more responsible for our own actions. Indeed, the word responsibility and the word sensitivity are very often synonyms.

As I said, there are many boundary violations that routinely occur in a community or group. Assuming friendship on the part of another member is one Kasl also mentions. Just because we are all part of the church doesn't mean we are all buddies. For that matter, making assumptions about anything is not helpful. I'd like to suggest that it's always better to ask about something than to assume anything. By routinely making assumptions about someone else's needs, I might cross a boundary into someone else's identity. It's for them to know where they begin and leave off…it's not for me to tell them what they need or not. It's up to me to give them the room to tell me, or to simply ask.

Not taking No for an answer is another form of boundary violation. "You must not like me any more" is something you might hear if you set such a boundary. The children's story this morning offered a good example of this, when Frog wants to be alone, but Toad simply cannot hear or even believe that this could be true. He pushes himself on a person, yes a friend, who just wants to be left alone a while. But this is only one more boundary crossing. My friend Stefan, bless his heart, got this completely. He never said to me, "Well you are not much of a friend if you don't want to listen to me in my time of need." By not trying to argue with me, he was taking responsibility for himself, no less than I was taking responsibility for myself. He blessedly refused to cross another boundary of my heart.

Certain kinds of what is usually called gossip can be another form of boundary crossing. "Esmeralda, did you know that Carlotta is going around the church saying you are one the people she doesn't like right now because of what you said to her the other day?" This crosses inappropriately into someone else's relationship, and inappropriately messes with it. What is the person being told this to do? Confront Carlotta? But the person spreading the news does not want this person to confront the woman with the list, because then she will be known as the tattle-tale. Instead, such behavior is a form of enmeshment, of inappropriate control and manipulation. It stems from someone being unclear about their own identity, about their own personal boundaries.

Such uncertainty about identity probably results most often from childhood situations…complex family systems stewed in alcohol, or even just histories of alcohol abuse. It can come from broken boundary relationships at home… inappropriate touching, parents who are more children than adults, volatile personalities, any number of things. Folks who violate boundaries evoke my compassion as much as they do my boundary setting…after all, how is anyone to learn about a solid identity or boundaries unless they are taught? It is no one's fault that they grew up in chaos and sadness, without good guides. But my ordinary compassion, a communion characteristic, needs to be balanced by limit and boundary setting, an agency characteristic, if there is to be health in relationships or communities. Compassion does not mean being a fool.

Boundary problems are often associated with words or phrases like "rescue," "abandonment and/or enmeshment," or "always settling for second best." Boundary problems are also often associated with a powerful fantasy life: "One day that person will come to his or her senses and love me the way I love them." "One day my prince will come," in the words of the Disney song. "One day everything will be all right." But fairy tales are, well, fairy tales. Life is best lived by those who are willing to work to make their own fate, not wait for it to be delivered on a silver platter.

Sometimes a boundary problem is reflected not about crossing a boundary but rather dealing with one that is totally inflexible and impenetrable. Often such a person was hurt so deeply once upon a time that their boundary is like a fortress. The song from Sondheim which the choir (will sing, sang) this morning has these lyrics: Someone hold me too close, somebody hurt me too deep, somebody ruin my sleep and make me aware of being alive. If it takes all that to make someone aware of being alive, if it doesn't take the fall of just one single leaf from an autumn oak, then I'd say the boundaries are not only inappropriate, they are being worn too tight.

I've spoken of unhealthy boundaries, but what do healthy boundaries look like?

Healthy boundaries are those that enable us to test or engage our experiences, and not retreat behind a wall of fantasy or wishes. Healthy boundaries enable us to take responsibility for what we are truly responsible for, our own happiness, not the happiness of others we are trying to rescue. Healthy boundaries are flexible, yes, but strong. In the wonderful phrase of psychologist John Stibbs, healthy boundaries enable us to "flourish in our own uniqueness." Healthy boundaries allow us to let others triumph or fall on their own terms. Healthy boundaries allow us not to beg our self-esteem from others. They keep us from turning hugs into blessings, or friendship into trophies. They help us to face manipulation or control in a relationship, and to confront it and not let it continue. Healthy boundaries enable us to join with others to find solutions to problems, so we don't carry the whole world on our back. They help us build trust in ourselves and in others, and to generate good self-images without having to beg such things from others. Healthy boundaries are where we begin and where we leave off, in Bolt's beautiful words.

Love is still love, compassion is still compassion, and communion with others is the source of so much joy and gladness in life. But I am here to say that the agency called the boundary can also be a great source of joy, great joy. And for communities of women and men and children, like this one, boundaries are our safety, our structure and our dignity. And I cannot pray for this community anything more wonderful than that.

Litany: [Next][back to top]

Yes to the breathing that keeps us alive.
Yes to the clouds lit by the noon sun.
Yes to autumn gourds and fresh apples.
Yes to children's laughter and play.
Yes to the dream of lions reclining with lambs.
Yes to telling the truth.
Yes to each other, always, with boundaries.
No to the lack of breathing that signs our fears.
No to the false guilt which pulls us down.
No to the rattling of sabers, & hissing of threats.
No to denial and songs left unsung.
No to excuses for why cruelty is necessary.
No to the twisting of truths.
No to assumptions and presumptions.
Yes to life, its joys and sorrows,
its disappointments and recovery,
its beauty and brokenness,
all touched by you, O Love,
our best end and best means.

Blessing: [back to top]

Since the Nobel Prizes were given this week, I want to bless us with words from two winners:  Kertesz Imre, Literature Prize, and Jimmy Carter, Peace Prize.

from Kertesz Imre's novel Fateless:

"If there is such a thing as fate, then there is no freedom…if there is freedom, then there is no fate. At that moment, I stopped to take a breath, and knew that WE OURSELVES are fate."

Jimmy Carter, in his Nobel Acceptance, offered these remarkable words:

"People everywhere share the same dream of a caring international community that prevents war and oppression. During the past two decades, my concept of human rights has grown to include not only the rights to live in peace, but also to adequate health care, shelter, food, and to economic opportunity."

Amen to that.

So, having heard these words, I bless you this way: As we say yes and mean yes, as we say no and mean no, we slowly earn our freedom to become the fate of the world. And thus, coming to know where we begin and where we leave off, may we together insist on a world of peace and justice for all people on earth, beginning with ourselves. Amen.

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