Borders and Boundaries
Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message
October 2, 2019
Fr. Tony writes and sends this from Tucson, where he is
attending the annual conference of his religious order, The Society of Catholic
Priests. The theme of the conference is
“At the Border of Holiness.” Today the
group will travel to the U.S.-Mexico Border to observe conditions there and
see some of the ways money we send to
assist refugees and immigrants is spent.
“We live limited lives until we ‘cross over’ into the concrete world of another country, another culture, another tradition ... I have left forever a small world to live with the tensions and the tender mercies of God's larger family.” (Joan Puls, Every Bush Is Burning)
I
am thinking a lot about borders and boundaries this week. Tucson is just a few dozen miles from the
U.S.-Mexico border, and you see the influence of the border on every street
here: place names in Spanish, much of the architecture follows that of Northern
Mexico, most restaurants serving very good Mexican fare. As our homilist this
evening, the Rev. David Cobb of the Seminary of the University of the South in Sewanee,
said: borders can be good or bad,
constraining or liberating. What we make
of borders—for good or ill—says much about us.
I
have had many border experiences in my life.
As a young man, moving to France and Belgium for a couple of years;
later living and working in China and then West Africa with the U.S. Foreign
Service. Moving overseas and studying
other languages gave me a great opportunity to break out of habits of thought
and action that had become routine and constraining. I am thankful to have been so blessed as to
enjoy such newness and strangeness of life and culture. Crossing over—being transgressive—to
something new and alien breaks the world open for us and deepens our
understanding of it.
Most
Episcopal Church congregations are mainly composed not of cradle Episcopalians,
but of refugees from other faiths and denominations. And even the cradle Episcopalians usually
have come back to the faith, newly conceived and reordered with the changes in
understanding from Biblical studies, the introduction of the “new” prayer book
in 1979, and perhaps more recent authorized liturgical adaptation (e.g.
“Enriching our Worship”) using inclusive and expansive language, and newer
understandings of gender, interpersonal relationships, and sexual ethics. Those who return to the faith in “traditionalist” congregations that still use
Rite I or the 1928 Prayer Book come often because of new understanding and new
relationship they personally have established with the rites and the
faith. In a sense, we are all people who
have left the small world and crossed over into terra incognita, into the
tender mercies of God’s larger family.
Of course, we need to respect
boundaries when they are appropriate, since they protect us and others from
abuse and the harm of the inappropriate. Without them, we are at the
mercy of others. But in general, border crossing is a good
thing.
The solemn
collect from Good Friday, I think, explains why such border crossings are
important in our personal faith: “O God of unchangeable power and eternal
light: Look favorably on your whole Church, that wonderful and sacred mystery;
by the effectual working of your providence, carry out in tranquility the plan
of salvation; let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are
being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that
all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things
were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in
the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.”
Blessings and prayers for you from the border,
Fr. Tony+
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