Crossing the Border: Tuesday's Reflection

Thanks to the generosity of a dear friend, I spent a couple days recently in one of my soul places, the Chautauqua Institution in New York. When we lived in Cleveland, I often drove the mere two hours to spend the day there, and some summers I luxuriated in a full week of going to lectures and sitting on the porch outside my tiny room, reading and writing. I walked the quiet streets lined with Victorian homes --each one with a welcoming front porch. I even taught a journal writing class there one summer.

I knew the first time I walked through the gate, I belonged there. I knew I would meet myself there. Yes, there were lots of people like me there--educated, white, privileged, but that's not exactly what I mean. I knew this would be a place where I would get closer to the person I am created to be. In this setting I would ease into uncovering the hidden parts of myself. I would challenge myself. I would ask questions and not take the first response as the only response. I would listen to others, but not more than I listened to my own inner voice. I would imagine my better self and discover steps to own her, be her. 

That's what soul places do. That's what soul places are. 

But, first, you need to cross the threshold, the border. You need to stretch across boundaries, even the ones whose only purpose seems to be to keep you out. 

Crossing the threshold at Chautauqua was easy for me. No one said I couldn't do it. No one told me I wasn't welcome or even illegal. No one separated me from what was most precious to me.

No one told me I was not worthy. 

There have been times when crossing the border wasn't quite as easy. When I was a child and my family moved, I often felt as if I had landed in a foreign country and didn't know the language or the customs or culture, and I wondered if I would ever feel at ease there and if anyone would extend a hand to me. I sometimes felt that way when I moved as an adult, as well. 

Crossing the border is not easy, but sometimes the soul requires it as much as the body and the mind does. 

Perhaps what we each need right now is to remember times in our own lives when we have crossed a border, how that felt, and what it meant to us. 

An Invitation
What kinds of borders have you crossed? What did you learn about yourself? I would love to know.

NOTE: I invite you to read my recent Monk in the World guest post on Christine Valters Paintner's Abbey of the Arts site here.