In my previous column, I considered those physical and actual things that separate humans from each other, that separate animals from humans, that separate one point on the map from a different point on the map.
Just as mountains are an impediment to travel (or survival), so are the invisible lines and borders, rules and expectations, assumptions and judgements that define our days, our relationships, and our communities.
Some of the most powerful but veiled borders are familial or faith-based (two F words). A person who is dear to me has said over and over that “families are complicated,” which is the understatement of the century. Families and family members can establish emotional boundaries and lines in the sand that (so to speak) are as insurmountable as any snowy peak or fast-flowing river. We can live and co-exist with people related to us by blood, but then those relationships go off the rails in a divorce, when parents die, or when family members make decisions of which others disapprove. Children are kept from their relatives, lines of communication are cut, memories are distorted, or falsehoods are perpetuated. It is a total head-scratcher. Such behavior serves what ends exactly? Families can impose boundaries and expectations that are burdensome or unreasonable on one hand, or can provide the kind of loving support and encouragement that inspires success and confidence.
Faith, for all its power and benefits, can be a real tightrope walk. Faith is the architect of some of the world’s most glorious creations — the Blue Mosque and the Alhambra, St. Peter’s Basilica, the Temple Mount, plus artwork, music, and sculpture — and the impetus for history’s cruelest moments. What is the seed of such hate? It is unseen and often imperceptible until some trigger (resentment, revenge, prejudice) lights an awful spark. The unseen can be as powerful and strong, for good and for ill, as facts, data, documents, or reporting. Alas.
What of the privilege that is afforded by education and training, certificates and credentials, passports and licenses? Can you tell if someone has a passport by looking at him or her? Emphatically no. Does a person who has sophisticated technical training have a certain walk, drive a certain car, live in a particular neighborhood? Again, emphatically no. We cannot discern by sight what opportunities and experiences a person has had and so we should resist the temptation to separate ourselves from that person by making assumptions based on appearance. Don’t judge a book, the saying goes, and it applies to people as well as our reading choices. A dull or sketchy person on the outside may gleam on the inside; likewise, some of the meanest, scariest people in human history were good-looking and well-groomed, concealing the taint within. The boundaries and borders of the prejudicial kind are not just insolent, they are also dangerous. We’d do well to train ourselves out of old habits of judgment made from the sidelines and not from direct knowledge. When we are misguided, we are not just wrong; we are arrogant and overbearing (as in UNbearable).
There are lines that are very clear. Humans make decisions every day to cross lines, though they know well about the consequences (moral and emotional, if not legal or financial) for them.
Some obvious lines we experience personally or hear reported include the conflict(s) between good and evil, freedom and captivity, right and wrong, truth and fiction, kindness and cruelty, legal and criminal. How can we know the lines that can, and cannot, be crossed if the quicksand on either side of the lines is not always obvious or easy to abide by? My best advice is caution, thoughtfulness, self-awareness... and some guidance from a true friend or a higher power (however you may understand the idea of “higher power”).
Mental, emotional, familial, or cultural boundaries are just as much an obstacle as a mountain or wall, a fence or a river. We may believe we have lines we will not cross and then... we have children, we get married, we have a job or a status that we do not want to lose. Our personal lines may evolve, grow, and change as we each evolve, grow, and change over a lifetime. There is benefit in some occasional moral housekeeping as well as reflection on the notion of who or what benefits, and who or what is hurt, from the crossing of various lines.
The philosopher/theologian Martin Buber (1878 — 1965, look him up) wrote: “All actual life is encounter.” Think on that and then go forth in these early days of 2026 and encounter — the world, the hard physical obstacles, strangers as well as neighbors, and deeply encounter those borders, boundaries, lines, and instincts that disconnect and diminish us.
This is not a book review column, but let me recommend Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott. I read it over the holidays. In a collection of personal essays, Lamott describes life challenges, her fierce Christianity (as well as her journey to it), motherhood, family, work, and more. She is a keen — and hilarious — observer of humanity. Ah, faith — one of those borders and boundaries that cannot be clearly discerned, but which has a power that is alternately compelling and disturbing (depending on delivery and interpretation).
(1) comment
Thank you.. This was wonderful and so real.
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