Bad Ass Boundaries

When we started the Abbey, I wanted to be about saying Yes! Yes, you are welcome! Yes, we are more than a church! Yes, come all week long for coffee! Yes, relax and look at books.

Church is so famous for saying no. No you can’t have communion because you are divorced. No babies in worship. No, you can’t be in the choir because you are gay. No you can’t be a godparent unless you are a member. No, we can’t have your group here, they leave to many cigarette butts in the parking lot. No, we can’t make room for your stuff…we have this closet full of overhead projectors and VCR’s. No, we can’t have that event here, their kids run around the church, spilling juice and making things a mess in the nursery.

Church meetings are famous for telling folks no, no we can’t do that, we have never done that before or we did that before and it didn’t work…even if that was actually 25 years ago. No coffee in the sanctuary. I mean, churches are sort of notorious for being incredibly low on grace, saying no and being incredibly cheap, which is different from good stewardship.
Like asking for a quarter by the coffee pot and then cutting all the donuts in half or worse quarters in the fellowship hall….with someone watching for who contributes. This happens in church when folks start making their space about themselves only, when they forget the mission of being for others and start only being for themselves.

I wanted to be a church that said “yes”. When we graduated into our own church and I was here full time I could see our day to day culture in action and we were not saying yes.

We had folks saying no - no, you can not take a ceramic cup into the salon. No, you can not bring your coffee from Scooter’s in while you shop for books. No, we will not add peanut butter to your strawberry smoothie. No, we will not give you change for the parking meter. No, you cannot borrow a fork. No, we will not exchange your book. No, we will not host that event - it makes us change our schedule by 30 minutes. No, we won’t sell your feminists children’s book here. No, you can’t get an extra pump of vanilla after you have already taken a sip of coffee and if you do we will run your credit card for 50 cents (which literally cost us more than it profited).

There were so many “No’s” that I started a “Just Say Yes” campaign; the inverse Nancy Regan. I was hosting staff meetings about how we can say yes, how we can figure it out, how we can offer warmth, safety, care, and love to the folks that join us day in and day out.

I have taught and re-taught saying, “YES.” I have literally said, “If you are about to say no, stop and think about how to work out a yes and if you can’t get there talk to me.”

Of course saying, “yes” lead to some of our biggest problems. One of our managers said yes, and made a latte while I offered our opening prayer. A barista said yes to making three smoothies while Sister Kathleen shared about the horrors and costs of Texas for-profit immigration detention centers (P.S. this was during Obama’s presidency and blender noise and for-profit detention centers are still a problem). We tried to stay open as a coffee shop even when we hosted our partner events and it didn’t work for anyone. Coffee people felt awkward for interrupting and event people were distracted. We were not holding sacred space because we couldn’t honor boundaries that were needed in that hour.

Once I said yes to a partner for an event that I knew in my gut would be a problem. They wanted to host an event at 9:00am. I thought to myself, this may be tricky, that is when we have folks working and studying, but I thought I’m sure I’m wrong; we can make it work it will probably only be 20 people anyway. I was wrong, 109 people came to hear about human trafficking. It was a great event, but all the people who were working or studying left, likely a little traumatized by stories they were not prepared to hear and they never came back.

What made us a good church, made us a bad coffee shop. We had to create boundaries around how and when we use our space because being everything made us nothing, we failed in every aspect of our pluralistic identity.

We have struggled with boundaries around welcoming people, it turns out not everyone is ready to be in community all the time. I have given away food and coffee to folks experiencing homelessness, I thought as an act of love but in reality the easy short term answer to my discomfort and not good long term practice. We ended up being something of a day center, which would have been fine if we were running a day center and staffing with social workers rather than baristas. This ‘hospitality’ made the environment dangerous for staff and for our neighbors at the salon, in some ways that will be funny some day and in some ways that will never be funny. We got help from the police and from MACCH, Sienna Francis and The Stevens Center and they all said, “You need to stop doing what you are doing. You are not helping us do this work and you are making your people less safe.” We had to acknowledge our limits, we were not a day center and if we want to be we have to do that with real intention.

We have struggled to find balance in this space and saying, ‘yes’ all the time just doesn’t work anymore than saying, ‘no’ all the time does. Rather than “Just Say Yes!” what I really wanted was problem-solving and solution-seeking focused around how we care for others.

We don’t think about Jesus having boundaries, probably for the same reason we don’t think he is political. We tend to domesticate him and his message in a way that is palatable for the powerful. We transform this change maker into a maintainer of the status quo because a community of quiet, boundary-less people are much easier to use than a group of robust, committed folks with serious intentions and a profound sense of their own worth.

Jesus, when we really look deeply, seems to have extraordinarily clear boundaries. He doesn’t even respond to mom-guilt (Matthew 12:46-50). He eats with friends, he weeps with friends, he rests often in his favorite town of Bethany, he receives intimacy reclining on the chest of the beloved disciple (John 13:23), and he even takes a nap on a boat during a storm (Luke 8:23). When folks seek healing, he offers it on his terms, on his timing. He leaves people in line when he is done and to the man waiting for 38 years to be dipped in the pool he asks the questions, “Do you want to be well” (John 5:1-14)? This moment isn’t about him, it isn’t about how many people he can heal. The disciples are never hanging around after the crowds dwindle and decide to head home after shooting the breeze. When it’s time to leave work, he leaves his work; when it’s time to eat, he eats; when it’s time to pray, he prays; when it’s time to teach, he teaches; and when it is time to move on, he puts one foot in front of the other. He is intentional about every aspect of life. He is intentional about who is a disciple and who is a part of the crowd.

He knows who he is, objecting when crowds and even his own disciples attempt to make him over in the image of the world by wanting to make him king or lead a revolution. He teaches his disciples to do what he is doing, feeding people, healing people, changing people’s lives in order to change the world. This act of empowering others is an ultimate way of saying this is not about me, it’s about us. It’s a way of saying the kingdom of heaven is different from any kingdom you see on earth. He sends the disciples and the 72 out with their own boundaries, with companions for the journey and no solo heroes. He asks them to be vulnerable in their travels and, in a last note, he reminds them of their boundaries, telling them to shake the dust from their sandals when they are not received (Matthew 10:14 and Luke 10:11). He sends them out in for-otherness, not to be used by others.

Brené Brown, in her study of resilience, names that people who live wholeheartedly have the clearest boundaries. They can be vulnerable because they do it with intention.

We are in a season where we have to navigate boundaries in new ways along with the old ways. We have to ask about the comfort of our community and our friends and family when it comes to masks and risks around COVID-19. We have to know our comfort in order to name for other what we need. And this can be hard.

There is a difference between being for others and being used by others, and we can usually feel that. It is easier to learn boundaries by noticing when they have been transgressed.

I usually learn boundaries when they have been violated. I have struggled in this space and as community we have struggled. We have said yes and we have said no at the wrong times. We have said “yes” out of fear or ease. We have said, “no” out of selfishness or anxiety. Both were wrong. Yes and no are essential and hard. I find this to be a constant edge of our work and a space that requires nuance from our staff, board and team leaders.

And I work on boundaries because I understand what I couldn’t before which is that we can not welcome people into a space and into a community, if we have zero boundaries, we would have nothing to welcome them too. We are constantly navigating our boundaries, learning and growing. When we care about work, we set intentions and boundaries, not everyone is on the pastoral care team or a small group leader, not everyone teaches Sunday school or handles our finances, there are trainings and expectations and boundaries. We do this to be healthy and to offer our communal space and collective gifts in a way that is life giving. We do this to be for others rather than used by others, we do this to offer our best to others.

A true welcome is born of intention and it has boundaries about how we treat one another in community. When boundaries are violated, we feel it. Perhaps you have felt it, when your giving becomes less cheerful, when your time is sucked up without care or intention. I feel it in my gut, maybe you feel with muscle tension in your shoulders. I am learning how we need to structure our space and our boundaries, proactively rather than reactively. We often struggle with boundaries but it is not cruel or unkind, it is about intention. How do you plan your time and your day with intention. How do you let your yes be yes and your no be no. How do you say yes out of love rather than fear? Boundaries do not have to be closing us off from the world, they can open us up but the difference is we are present and ready to love. Boundaries help us enter with our whole heart, they say if we are going to do it then let’s really do it, on purpose, like Jesus would.