boundaries

I want to remind pastors and leaders that we do not own the church__od does. We aren't called to serve the church from a place of fear with our primary focus on protecting our boundaries. We are called to fling wide the doors, to invite to the banquet those on the margins, those who will challenge our comfort and our aversion to getting our hands dirty. Announcing the kingdom is risky business. When our experience of church becomes so predictable and so controlled, one has to wonder how far we've strayed from the calling to be ambassadors of reconciliation to those far beyond the walls of the church.

If you don't break your own standards, you will not reach new heights and levels. It is by stretching our limits that we move beyond boundaries. Keep improving!

According to Melanie Klein, we develop moral responses in reaction to questions of survivability. My wager is that Klein is right about that, even as she thwarts her own insight by insisting that it is the ego's survivability that is finally at issue. Why the ego? After all, if my survivability depends on a relation to others, to a "you" or a set of "yous" without whom I cannot exist, then my existence is not mine alone, but is to be found outside myself, in this set of relations that precede and exceed the boundaries of who I am. If I have a boundary at all, or if a boundary can be said to belong to me, it is only because I have become separated from others, and it is only on condition of this separation that I can relate to them at all. So the boundary is a function of the relation, a brokering of difference, a negotiation in which I am bound to you in my separateness. If I seek to preserve your life, it is not only because I seek to preserve my own, but because who "I" am is nothing without your life, and life itself has to be rethought as this complex, passionate, antagonistic, and necessary set of relations to others. I may lose this "you" and any number of particular others, and I may well survive those losses. But that can happen only if I do not lose the possibility of any "you" at all. If I survive, it is only because my life is nothing without the life that exceeds me, that refers to some indexical you, without whom I cannot be.

It's important to understand that your no is always subject to you. You own your boundaries. They don't own you. If you set limits with someone, and she responds maturely and lovingly, you can renegotiate the boundary. In addition, you can change the boundary if you are in a safer place.

Some survivors can be wary of most people, yet blinded by compassion toward fellow survivors or others who suffer _ or who pretend to suffer, or exaggerate their sufferings, in order to take advantage of the survivor. Some survivors overidentify with other survivors, not realizing that even if someone was traumatized or suffers in a similar way, it doesn__ necessarily mean that person is honest. Being either overly suspicious or overly trusting can create problems with a partner who is able to judge the sincerity of others more realistically.

You have the right to set ground rules. This means deciding if, when, and how you want to see the people in your family. Many survivors feel that if they open up the channels at all, they have to open them up all the way. When you were a child you had two options__o trust or not to trust. Your options are broader now.

Many people will not be honest because they fear loss of intimacy and togetherness. In reality, honesty brings people closer together, for it will strengthen their identities. The more you realize your separate identities, the closer you can become. Telling loved ones what is really on your mind and telling others what you really think is the foundation of love.

Creating and maintaining healthy boundaries demonstrates respect for ourselves and others and builds trust in both our work and personal relationships.

In healthy development, trust evolves. How do we decide whether to trust? We share a feeling with someone and watch their reaction; if the response feels safe, if it is caring, noncritical, non-abusive, the first step of trust has developed. For trust to grow, this positive response must become part of a relatively reliable pattern_ Trust develops with consistency over time.

I picture the vast realm of the sciences as an immense landscape scattered with patches of dark and light. The goal towards which we must work is either to extend the boundaries of the patches of light, or to increase their number. One of these tasks falls to the creative genius; the other requires a sort of sagacity combined with perfectionism.

We need people who push boundaries rather than retreat inside them.

When teaching someone a boundary, they learn less from the enforcement of the boundary, and more from the way the boundary is established.

Sometimes your belief system is really your fears attached to rules.

Sometimes, when you really want to get to know a person but have boundaries that prevent you from doing so, you learn about them as much as you can.

Compassion is all inclusive. Compassion knows no boundaries. Compassion comes with awareness, and awareness breaks all narrow territories.

I'm listening to my son right now.

How will I know who I can become if I don't give myself the chance to try new things, to push myself beyond my natural boundaries? Who might I be if I am away from the things that I currently use to define myself?

God is gathering a small number of chosen people who will live within the boundaries these times