Eric’s Sunday Sermon; “Border Crossing”

What border crossing. Who’s border crossing? Are there different borders that need to not be crossed? I was headed to a border crossing and got good and turned away. Thank goodness. I would have been stuck in Mexico for possibly months like my sister will be. Now that is a border crossing I am happy to have avoided. But let us look at our border crossing. Or denial thereof.

There was a stupid time in ’74, I did a border crossing into East Germany. Germany was like Mexico, you can get in but you can’t get out. (Please if you drink the Vodka and eat the sauerkraut do not go to bed for hours) However beer and bread will work fine.

It was just an ordinary night like so many. The man waited until his wife got home so their boy could be looked after. A moderate fever, alternating with cold sweats. Just a bit of the cough. Not a darn thing to be concerned with. Except!?

Others seem to matter. Bring it on dude, I will not be beaten by a flu. But by golly jingles someone else could be whooped hard and end up horizontal because of me. Seems that is irresponsible and just out of sight wrong. This is a border crossing I cannot make. Or maybe we should say because of ….I had to make the border crossing away.

So here I sit writing without a soul in a mile. A place nearly 30 miles from my birth but in the agrarian woods that I was really raised by. It is 28 degrees and my funny little hands are freezing and arthritic killing me. Ok they are quite big hands and the pain is from stuff getting broken in them from fighting and I never told my mom, so they are busted up because of no treatment. That is a border crossing. My bad I did not cross that border with mom.

Door mats and front doors are border crossings. Locked doors on your home are closed border crossings. When the Jehovah Witness knocks are you a closed border or invite them in for water and maybe a snack and then listen so they can cross the border with you? Do you set appointments?

Women need to set boundaries. They just do have to for safety and integrity. My previous love and current mother of some of my babies is not even fun about boundaries. She is hard core about lines that may not be crossed. Or maybe God works it that way to build the spines of folks.

I know this. I have been crushed from beat up by fists to falling off cliffs to bad jails to stage 4 cancer. My prison at the moment is acrophobia. Bring it on baby. I will jump tomorrow 3/20 something 2020. Thirty something feet – more like fifty – into the creek. I am already scared to death. My feet tingle. Ladies and gentlemen that is the good life. Face that danged border of fear. And then cross that border any way.

We simply are not allowed to hide. Us who read this are not designed to live happy without confronting our borders of fear. I say “us” who read this because I am a big sissy and I have to reread 6 times because I am afraid of crossing the peril of publishing.

Get this one. Five years of Sundays. Preaching to 150 folks. And some are family and the priest is judging. I did not need no stinking pulpit, paper or microphone, I was with my people. Can you imagine the fear of crossing that border of leading them astray? Whew I think I never did and then teaching the Sunday school. Oh the pressure to get them to believe and think on their own. Now that is a border crossing.

I got involved in border crossers who snuck across the US-Mexican border. It was not nasty, “for me”. My job was to help them. How cool is that? This was back when folks just needed a better life. Now I understand there are folks who cross that border and then cross the border into crime. Sorry for bad language but that sucks.

Through Nogales in about ’77 I crossed the border with Paco. Fully illegal but he was our parrot for over 15 years. Fine, smuggling booze and drugs is more exciting. But that kind of border crossing I will leave my lovely prior wife to chat about that. My bride and I only smuggled over 100k into Vietnam. Borders seem all kind of funny to me. May we look more at our borders? We need to address that in a loving way.

Linda Lum recently walked me spiritually through some issues where someon crossed my borders. “No, no, no Eric stop it! Respond by loving those who might cross the line. Don’t you dare cross that line in return.” (to that effect) And the borders were opened by her advice. Wow!

Imagination

Do you have a border that needs to be crossed in order for you to just plain imagine? Sorry for my loved ones but the border for me goes the other way. I stared at stars already for an hour tonight. I got up before sunrise just to smell and feel the new day and then see the sunrise and hear the birds startup. I fished with no hook but just a rock. Sometimes you should just fish with no chance of catching a fish. It is so good and cool to let that border be crossed into a type of nothingness.

Oops I forgot this was a sermon. Now you can cross that border into love.

We put up defenses on our national borders. Like I lock my doors at night. I also have a Katana that can slice paper in midair. Whoa be to an intruder that crosses my border without permission. Isn’t that all weird. Fact is there are bad people.

Delivery

That is such a cool term. Crossing a border is delivering. Delivering is to move something from one place to someone. Mail. Amazon. War material.

Now let us step back; “how the stuff is delivered means a whole lot”. Love baby, love. So you can deliver love, but the manner in which you cross that border to another, is where the deal is at. The most important border crossing is love. And how we deliver it is critical to us and to others.

Mary Goddard, a very good friend told me “to shut up and listen.” Now that is part of delivering love.

Doesn’t it just seem apparent that borders are attitudes? And sometimes we have to curb and change those attitudes. I like the psycho babble concept of setting boundaries.

But communication is love. And the finest art of communication is listening and then listening more. I am totally lousy on this matter. I have to really try. I will attack your border and boundary with zest. I drive folks away as I raise my voice and prove my points. Hooray for me?

I have no boundaries. Just by my life there are no boundaries.

Now I have boundaries due to a virus. I do not like them one little bit. I am a hugger. Six feet away kills that. Closing the border crossing is killing me. But I lie a little bit there as I am quarantined/sheltered in place in one of the prettiest places in the world. Right above Sedona Arizona. With miles to spend days exploring without a soul to greet.