A God Unbounded!

Yesterday I wrote about a friend's memorial mass. While thinking about her unique life, I was looking for an adjective that might hint at her vision of God; I didn't find a satisfactory one. This morning one occurred to me: "Unbounded"!

This may or may not be a linguistically recognized adjective, but what it says to me is that God has no boundaries. Sure, "infinite" means that, but "unbounded" also says "unconstrained," "no limits," "free." I think Joyce's God would have been like this, so when her vision took her  "outside the box," which it did lots of times, God was there ahead of her.

As I reflected on this, I realized how important it is for me to make this aspect of God a more integral part of my spirituality than it is. If God is unbounded, with all that implies, it means I need to curtail my judgments, especially of people whose actions seem to be outside the normal expectations of society or even religions.

Over time, each family, culture, society or religion sets up a framework within which members are supposed to operate. Through history there are many stories of how groups treat people who "cross over" the boundary lines. We see extremes of this in the Salem witch trials, the McCarthy era & the Inquisition; more subtle instances show up with red lining in real estate, literacy tests for voting, etc. Then today, for example, there are the multitude of "looks" some people give others when a behavior or practice is considered over the edge, such as unusual haircuts, clothes, multiple tattoos, and so on.

Today, when someone crosses a line I perceive as significant in defining a boundary of appropriateness, righteousness, or whatever, I need to remind myself that my boundaries are not God's, because God doesn't have any. In my meditation and scripture discussions I've often pointed out that Jesus' whole life was spent breaking boundaries. He was always "crossing over" the lines that spoke about who was worthy and what was sacred. Now this observation has been brought a little closer to home.

Joyce, thanks for one more life lesson!

a ky monk