Borderline is an adjective usually defined in pretty negative terms:
1. 0n or near a boundary.
2. uncertain; indeterminate; debatable.
3. not quite meeting accepted, expected, or average standards.
4. approaching bad taste or obscenity.
5. a type of personality disorder.
Why?
Doesn’t “boundary” have the sense of limitation, restraint, warning not to cross? Why should we be wary, if not fearful, of crossing a boundary?
Doesn’t “uncertain; indeterminate; debatable” have a flavor of weakness, ineptitude, not quite succeeding? Why should we idealize certitude and certainty when we limited, imperfect creatures never really fully attain it?
Doesn’t “not quite meeting…standards” sound like a sort of indictment? What so bad about originality or being slightly ahead or behind of the herd?
Doesn’t “bad taste or obscenity” try to scare us away, like a danger sign on a fence? Whose value judgement is it anyway, and is that person right or wrong?
Doesn’t “personality disorder” imply an unhealthy condition, a sickness? What’s so wrong about trying to see both sides of the coin, so to speak?
In retrospect, I would characterize most of my life as borderline, meaning something positive, fortunate, empowering—although sometimes with its share of misunderstandings, criticism, and disparagement.
Fortunately, my parents had different religious affiliations, family backgrounds, and customs. Wasn’t that confusing for a kid? No, because for a kid, one’s home and home life are the norm; it’s a surprise when you discover everybody else’s isn’t the same as yours.
It’s hard to be antisemitic if half your family is Jewish—and it’s hard to be anti- Christian if half your family is Catholic.
True, I never felt entirely at home with St. Patrick’s Day reveling, even though I was half-Irish in descent. I wasn’t upset because I wasn’t 100% one nationality or another—nobody really is. As President Obama once jokingly said, I’m a “mutt”, and so are we all—or “blend”, if you prefer.
I was growing up in mixed Bronx neighborhood. I went to public school (once thought of as Protestant).
“What are you?”, kids in school asked. The answer, of course, was the country your family came from. (This was America, naturally, the land of immigrants.) I never could give a one-word answer.
These were fortunate aspects of my early life. I wasn’t limited by boundaries. I learned to straddle them, one foot on each side, to be comfortable on either side or both.
Later I went from public to private school, an eminent college that exposed me to the WASP world, a seminary experience that was, naturally, very Catholic, and a challenging early experience of ministry, first in almost rural areas and then in the West Side Story world of Manhattan.
I had to learn another language, Spanish, studying in Puerto Rico, and later Italian, while living in Rome. Happily I learned about cultural differences not just linguistic.
Later ministry immersed me in the world of Latin America, the Vatican, Middle East, Eastern Europe, and parts of Africa and Asia. I traveled all over and around the world.
My life has been so enriched by crossing boundaries. How unfortunate it must be always to be confined to just one side.
22 April 2021