MY BOUNDARIES BUMP INTO OTHER BOUNDARIES

Boundaries are taken for granted, so much so that they are often hidden in plain sight. My life is composed of those limitations that I set, plus, to a great degree, those set for me by circumstances over which I have no control.

I can reason and know that I know, plus I have the tremendous responsibility of choosing what I will accept within my boundary layers that I believe will benefit me in some way.

Life, in one sense, is like eating at a buffet luncheon each minute of each day. There are choices of delectable foods you want to eat and some you don’t like (for me, that is any organ meats). I am picky and choosey because I am created to select what is good for me and then eat it. Some foods look good but are devoid of nourishment (cotton candy). In terms of boundaries, I assume that in my way of thinking and acting, those elements do something for me that not having them would do.

With each Lectio Divina I do, I am realizing that my choices come and go, depending on my needs and my awareness (consciousness) of what is meaningful to my worldview or harmful to it.

Physically speaking, my body repairs itself (for the most part) with more and more systems slipping into the mode of not working as they did when I was 30. Sic transeat gloria mundi. I keep dredging up that poem about Ozymandias, which is more and more appropriate to my physical self. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7JOCJX-N7c

Using the Teilhard map (unattributed) as a pattern against which my thoughts on boundaries are fitted, hopefully, without being too Procrustean, I look at boundaries from the only worldview that makes sense to me: my years of assimilating those countless tests of what is good for me and what tastes good but is without substance (e.g., cotton candy).

Suppose I ask the late Pierre Teilhard de Chardin what reality looks like. In that case, I imagine this map would be a fair approximation of the notion of movement, evolution, or, as it makes sense to me, intelligent progression. It does help me focus on those three hidden, innate longings deep in my unconscious, those being:

• a. What does it mean to be human at the following or highest level of our humanity?
• b. How can I love at that highest level and experience what nature intended me to be?
• c. What is the template of truth that, if applied to these first two probings, gives me absolute certitude that what I choose for them is true?

I am leaving the God Equation aside, or rather looking deeper within its borders of my own life weltanschauung (accumulated life experiences), including those I have discarded as lacking the capability or capacity to answer these three questions of primacy for my humanity. My eighty-three years move with ever-increasing consciousness and complexity to a point of terminus in the future, one which Teilhard de Chardin calls Omega.

I use the notion of boundaries to explore my life view of what is real and good for me to satisfy the longings of this hungry heart. My thinking here is in the process of making sense, so bear in mind that I seek answers by hopefully asking the right three questions (above).

My boundaries are the only ones that give any meaning to me. The question is always, “What’s in it for me?” Although we share a generic humanness, what that means is different for each individual human. Coming as we did from an animalistic heritage that caused us to defend ourselves from the attacks of predators, animals, or humans, our default is defensive concerning accepting anything within my personal space (boundary). Humans don’t like to be told what to put within their boundaries. Paradoxically, we have an intense urge to have others adopt our boundaries as their own, even to the point of forcing them to do so.

When my boundaries (values, those behaviors that I have chosen to be good for me, the whole lifetime of my seeking the answers to the three queries above) clash with others, as they inevitably do each day, I must reassess where I stand against what is good for me in terms of the boundaries of other individuals or groups of individuals (politics, religion, societal norms based on geopolitics of where I am at the time).

When my boundaries of what it means for me to be human at the highest level of my evolution, what it means to love so fiercely that it allows me to reach a point of being what my nature intended, and the template I overlay over my whole life boundary to see what fits and what doesn’t. Where can I go to get answers to these three questions? What human template fits the lock and opens the door to pure knowledge, love, and truth? This is my quest while I still have breath.

Over a lifetime of trial and error, I have come to this understanding of my humanity rather than any definitive conclusions:

• There is a higher dimension to my humanity than I now possess, one that transitions from animality to rationality and then again from rationality to spirituality.
• This spirituality is a boundary I discovered from a source that can only be described as “The One who has no boundaries,” similar to what Jewish heritage held with the name of “Yehovah,” or the one whose name must not be pronounced. It fits into this pattern of the Rule of Opposites (anything to do with God is governed by the opposite of what humans conclude from their reasoning and free will alone).
• I set lifelong boundaries with those activities, experiences, relationships, people, and the meaning of life that I assume into my sphere of influence. I am not you; you are not me; God is not us; and we, most certainly, are not God.
• Like bubbles, my boundaries might be part of a larger whole, such as humanity, in the more giant bubble of living beings. Some of these boundaries I find myself born into, such as humanity, while other more giant bubbles I must choose to enter, like Democrats, Republicans, or Libertarians.
• When I join a larger bubble, such as the Catholic Church (any church, for that matter), I am influenced by the beliefs and practices within that particular bubble, all the while retaining my individual reasoning and freedom to accept or deny anything I don’t like. I am guessing this is why many Catholics say they are catholic but don’t believe 100% of all the rules and regulations generated by that bubble. King Henry VIII was named “Defender of the Faith” and rejected the authority of that giant bubble regarding marriage. He assumed all the rituals and practices of the Roman Rite Catholic Church, which still endure today. Because you are in a bubble, it doesn’t mean you believe all its precepts or conclusions.
• In terms of my Lay Cistercian spirituality, as I know it, that translates into my having to convert myself each day, not with the bubbles of any human origin, but that of the Divine Bubble, one in which all that is has its mind, heart, and evolution. Humanities next level of evolution, or intelligent progression, as I prefer to call it, happens within my individual bubble as I interact with my environment while I live. Because I am accepted into that Divine Bubble as one with human nature (without being of Divine Nature), I do so as an adopted son or daughter of the Father.
• While on Earth, I am tempted to substitute the bubble of the Kingdom of Earth (John 14) for my adoption (the original sin of Adam and Eve is the archetype). That tension between the bubble of my Kingdom of Earth on Earth and the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth is the struggle to keep Christ, my template for what is true, at my center. Lay Cistercian spirituality is one way that I have chosen to keep my focus on Christ amid the allure of “false gods” or falling hostage to the lower instinct of my humanity (Galatians 5) as an example. Daily Conversion Morae is required to keep vigil against the enemy’s attack. Daily Capacitas Dei is required to continue to grow (evolve) my humanity from animality towards whatever is highest in my nature. I can’t do that without the help of Divine Assistance to overshadow me with the energy to always probe deeper into my humanity to seek more and more wisdom about what it means to be fully human, what it means to love fiercely as a human being, and what is true outside of my individual proclivities to seek my own gratification in all things.
• Jesus transitioned from the divine nature to become both divine and human to teach me the answers my humanity is hungry to assume into my bubble. This adoption happens only because God first adopted me and allowed me to learn what is valid from what the world says will enrich my humanity. (Philippians 2:5-12)

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