Letter from the Editor

The Question Of Borders

by Presbyter MATTHEW BROWN

Limitations form the borders of our life and its story, giving it shape and meaning much as each genre of literature has its own conventions giving it its distinct character, or a game’s rules dictate its flow. Without these limitations the game would not be fun nor the novel interesting. Nor would your life without its imposed boundaries have any meaning, just as a word which seemingly 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, the setting, or the normal limits of everyday life. In fantasy, because so much of the fantastic is allowed, it is easy for the writer 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. There’s a border to the earth’s magnetic field, and a border between our job responsibilities and those of our co-workers. If in any of these cases the border was to be entirely removed, one could easily 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 in which 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 doubleedged 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. When their country was engulfed in civil war, the border that was meant to protect them only trapped them in a near hellscape.

Consider a biological cell. Each 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 a cell’s membrane is impenetrable, then it cannot take in the energy it needs nor expel its waste. If it is completely permeable, it cannot protect the cell from viruses or other enemies. Were it to be stripped of its 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 them as a dichotomy between openness and closedness. Setting a border is always a decision regarding how open or how closed I want my life to be. And the proper balance is often dictated by the circumstances. In one situation, being more closed is better, while in another circumstance the same degree of closure would be unhealthy and counterproductive. The border between the U.S. and Canada can, because of numerous circumstances, afford to be more open, while the one between the U.S. and Mexico sadly cannot. Being open-minded is a necessary thing but at some point, one must make commitments, cement 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 an open or closed mind is inherently a virtue or vice. Rather, they are both necessary stages in making decisions. We must continually exercise both in 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, just as when we are learning, seeking answers, or wrestling with a problem, we must not be gullible or undiscerning.

In truth, borders can give us life and they can also destroy us. 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, without any distinction or boundaries. The rest of Genesis 1 is a series of separations and distinctions by which God sets boundaries between things to create beauty and life. “Then God said, ‘Let there be a 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.”

While borders gave shape to God’s creation, a border also barred Adam and Eve from Eden after their transgression. A border also kept the souls of the departed trapped in hell until Christ shattered that border in His Harrowing of Hades. The entire story of salvation is one of erecting the right borders and tearing down the wrong ones. In His Incarnation, Christ 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. St. 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.”

The task of setting borders right, begun by Christ, was handed over to us, His people, to complete. St. Maximus the Confessor, one of our great Church Fathers, 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 righting our borders. However, it is not as easy as simply imposing new rules or erecting higher walls. Nor is it merely

about 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 and 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, Orthodoxy’s theological approach to borders reflects the Trinity, in which that balance resides and originates. When we set a healthy boundary in a relationship or between our work and private life, we are imprinting a mark of the Holy Trinity on 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 concern borders, as with problems in our personal lives. Where we’ve failed to set proper boundaries in our relationships, issues of abuse or isolation emerged. Where we’ve failed to set proper boundaries to our profession, it harmed our family or led to acts of corruption. There is a boundary between my money and my employer’s money. Our leaders often have not set proper boundaries to their public service and have failed to discern their interests from those of the public good. We’ve erected walls to keep some people poor and to isolate us from each other, and therefore we are ignorant and afraid. We have even failed to properly erect a border around human life to guard 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? What are the roles of women in the church? The challenges to parish life and ministry are also questions of borders concerning how we approach outreach, and how we receive converts. When we change the way we do ministry, it gives rise to a question: 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 build their borders too high: death. It’s true that 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 from or defend ourselves against the world, but to conquer it and transfigure it. Moreover, 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, it can no longer hold off the barbarians.

We ought to heed the lesson of the cell. When a membrane is too impermeable, 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 heritage of doing such things). If we imitate and blindly incorporate the current trends in thought or culture, we risk making ourselves indistinguishable from the world and blending in until we disappear, repeating 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 while avoiding the foible of answering questions no one is asking. As the Church (and in our individual lives), we ought to strive for borders that are incarnational: ones that unite us while also making us more uniquely ourselves.

REV. MATTHEW BROWN is the editor-in-chief of Jacob’s Well and is studying for a PhD in theology at Fordham University. He is the rector of Holy Apostles Orthodox Church in Saddle Brook, New Jersey.

OPPOSITE: Santa Sofia (1891) John Singer Sargent