crossing boundaries
From an early point, humans are obsessed with boundaries. My toys versus your toys, my food not yours.
As we grow into social beings we become polite about these boundaries & our egocentrism, but we construct our environments out of the belief that boundaries are what we need to thrive. We think it natural & necessary for the rich to avoid with the poor, the north to not associate with the south, and country music listeners to not associate with jazz listeners.
Our ancient texts affirm this belief whether in the Taoist view of the yin and the yang or in Akkadian myths of Marduk dividing up roles for the kings of the proto-Babylonian land to rule parts of his creation. Even in the Hebrew Bible’s own creation account, Elohim separates “light and day,” “water from waters,” “sea from sky”, “land from sea,” (Gen 1:4-10) and appoints his own “rulers” over each of them (Gen 1:16). Beyond the creation accounts, the Israelite nation is called specifically to be a “kingdom of priests & a (set apart) nation” (Ex 19:6), so that they can one day be “set high above all nations” (Deut 26:18-19).
At first glance, these and many similar passages (Gen 49:26, Ex 13:12, Lev 20:24-26, Numb 16:9, Deut 10:8…) give us a view of humanity that works better when apart. We are inclined to think this is the way of things and any of its evil is necessary for flourishing…
But at the earliest point, we all crossed a boundary without thought to its indecency. Non-life to life, womb to world, water to air.
This is the miracle of birth- that, in it, we are in touch with another layer of reality, a boundary-crossing reality that effects or person and our place wholesale. A mother gives up the social baggage of my space-your space and invites another creature to be one with her- the most primal image of the Messiah’s call to “be one with me” (John 17:21).
Birth gives us an opportunity to witness the true nature of reality that is boundary-less.
Birth confounds the binary. It is an experience of neither mastery nor powerlessness; it confronts us with our embodied, earthly creativity, with what we can control and with what we simply cannot control…
Jennifer Banks, Natality: Toward a Philosophy of Birth
Unfortunately, “natality”, as Jennifer Banks and philosophers before her eloquently coin the term, is not at the top of our list for dinner party conversation like mortality or our separation from parts of the world is. Pressures consign this facet of the human experience to just one of its halves and one brief moment of time and conversation. We stifle its transforming power to show us how we (even those never to find themselves in need of a midwife or doula) can partake in radical acts of creation.
Birth breaks down most of the dualisms humans use to structure reality: man/woman, mind/body, thought/experience, destruction/creation, self/other, creator/created, birth/death. In challenging those binaries, birth can be an act of nonconforming, and motherhood an expression of alterity. Therein lies the difficulty of talking about birth today: birth is both the norm and its transgression.
Jennifer Banks, Natality: Toward a Philosophy of Birth
It makes all the sense in the world then that 3 of the 4 Gospels of the Christian Scriptures would begin with birth narratives (John maintains the natality of Christ through his poetic opening on the theological implications of the incarnation; while Mark, with no explicit birth narrative, goes to lengths to stress the idea that those outside “the family” are just as invited to the table as those born into it, giving us numerous boundary crossing stories in the place of the nativity to drive home this point). When Jesus comes onto the scene, his whole ministry is to bridge chasms that have opened up between people. He sits with the rich and the poor, invites tax collectors to dine with zealots, and speaks with forwardness and a restoring dignity to the opposite gender, allowing all to cross the boundaries of their time to sit at his feet.
Looking back then, in light of this reality, we see what was always there:
That the creator God in Genesis invited his handiwork (“let there be” is a jussive not an imperative) to become distinctly itself. Because the goal was never separation of land and sky or people from people.
Creation is about adopting uniqueness to find contribution (reflecting 1 Cor 12:12’s “one body, many parts” idea).
That the call of a certain people was to make uncertain the boundaries between all people.
Because the purpose of “setting apart” was never to create hierarchy.
Being chosen is about finding one’s own way to help others along the way (hear the Torah’s “a blessing to the nations” refrain; Gen 22:18, Jer 47:2, Gal 3:8).
Birth, the first, great crossing of boundaries, should begin to shape our understanding of the world and give us a map for the steps into new connections and the synergism of all life this side of Eden...
